# How to Film Commercials So Premium Brands Beg to Hire You ft. Zachary Guy

An episode of [THE 505 PODCAST](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1591279585), 26 Jun 2026, 1 h 45 min.

Audio: https://podcasts.beehiiv.com/3f71d8b4-2a8c-40eb-8500-c62b76bd9acc/019d43e4-0103-7741-b37f-b81b41dca056/019f02a2-6294-7187-a25d-47da4d1bfbe7/019f02a2-63f6-7e25-98e4-601ceb97dad0.mp3

6 Questions to Ask on a Discovery Call (FREE download) https://the505podcast.beehiiv.com/products/6questions What’s up Rock Nation! Today we’re joined by Zachary Guy, cinematographer, filmmaker, and YouTuber whose work has taken him from studying aerospace engineering to shooting high level commercial campaigns for brands like Aquafina, American Express, Google, and more. In this episode, we get into how Zach made the jump from engineering to filmmaking, the real difference between a videographer and a cinematographer, why pre-production is what separates a nice looking video from a real campaign, how to communicate and lead on bigger sets, how to get hired when you do not have connections yet, why spec work is still one of the best ways to open doors, how much Zach invested into his New Balance spec, what it was like shooting an Aquafina spot in Morocco, the lighting and blocking decisions behind the campaign, how to think about product lighting, match cuts, working with your significant other, why Zach has not built a traditional production company, the hardest part about being a full-time creative, and why teaching other filmmakers has become such an important part of his career. Check out Zachary here: https://www.instagram.com/zacharyjguy/ 00:00 – Intro 00:55 – Free Sales Call Guide 01:05 – One-Handed Crack 01:54 – From Aerospace Engineering to Filmmaking 05:50 – How Zach’s Family Reacted to His Career Change 07:58 – The Full Circle Aerospace Moment 08:56 – Videographer vs Cinematographer 10:10 – Zach’s Pre-Production Process 13:24 – Technical Skill vs Leadership on Set 16:22 – Learning How to Work With Bigger Crews 19:39 – How to Get on Set Without Connections 22:05 – Why Spec Work Opens Doors 24:55 – How Much Zach Invested Into His New Balance Spec 27:13 – Shooting Aquafina in Morocco 29:21 – Renting Gear in Another Country 30:28 – Local Shoots vs International Productions 33:10 – Why the Shoot Happened in Morocco 33:56 – Aquafina Spot Breakdown 34:46 – Breaking Down the Wide Shot 36:33 – Shooting at 1:00 in the Morning 38:03 – How Long the Wide Shot Took 38:54 – The Cafe Scene Breakdown 42:35 – Why Zach Starts With the Wide Shot 43:28 – How Lighting Changes When You Push In 45:38 – Why T-Stop Matters 47:35 – Breaking Down the Library Scene 51:19 – How Zach Thinks About Match Cuts 53:14 – How to Light Product Shots 56:38 – Leaving Space for Text and Brand Graphics 57:33 – Five Pieces of Gear Zach Can’t Live Without 59:59 – Shooting an Airbnb Spec in the Dolomites 1:04:31 – Working With Your Significant Other 1:06:17 – Why Zach Isn’t Building a Traditional Production Company 1:08:49 – The Hardest Part About Being a Full-Time Creative 1:09:56 – Why Zach Loves Teaching Filmmakers 1:13:12 – Filmmaking Advice Zach Disagrees With 1:15:33 – Wrapping the Episode With Zach 1:15:45 – Afterparty If you liked this episode please send it to a friend and take a screenshot for your story! And as always, we'd love to hear from you guys on what you'd like to hear us talk about or potential guests we should have on. DM US ON IG: (Our DM's are always open!) Bfiggy: https://www.instagram.com/bfiggy/ Kostas: https://www.instagram.com/kostasg95/

## Transcript

[0:00] Spec work is the foundation of any great cinematographer. If you learn one new skill from that spec, that is a benefit to exactly what you're doing in your career.
[0:09] That's Zachary Guy, a cinematographer and filmmaker who went from studying aerospace engineering to shooting high-level commercial work for brands like Aquafina, American Express, and Google.
[0:18] In this episode, Zachary takes us inside the world of high-end commercial filmmaking from building out spec projects that actually get attention to the pre-production and onset decisions that separate a nice looking video from a real campaign.
[0:30] When people shoot at 1.8, 1.4, it's distracting of what the actual narrative is. You're given a beautiful canvas by your director, you have to show it off. That's the difference when it comes to high-level production.
[0:41] We also dive into Zach's latest spot for Aquafina, and he breaks down exactly how he pulled off the shoot all the way in Morocco. There's a lot more unknowns with traveling to another country.
[0:50] I don't know exactly how they work, how they communicate. It's like the Wild West. Real quick, before we get into this episode, we're gonna let you know about our awesome free product.
[0:58] It's the top link in the description. If you're a videographer, getting on a sales call can be a little bit nerve-wracking. These six questions will help you navigate that. So go check it out. Let's keep rolling. Okay.
[1:06] Yeah. Zach, welcome to the show. I'm gonna show you the one-handed crack. The rules are, you're gonna pick this can up off the table. You are not going to try to engage it on, like, on your knee.
[1:16] So you're gonna open it up right here, finger off the trigger. Boom. Your goal is to not dent it, not spill it. That was a pretty damn good one. I spilled a teeny, tiny bit. 7.9 over here. Show him what not to do.
[1:26] Here you go. Then we'll get Zach in there. You got a little bit of a dent. Did you dent it out? It came out by itself, though- Okay... 'cause it's just- 6- 6.1... squeeze it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to try... Okay.
[1:39] Okay. Zach, what do you got for us? Boom. Oh, full dent. No. Oh, Zach. But you got it. Ah. You got it. And spill. \[laughs\] And spill. 4.8, baby. Yeah. Welcome to the show. Cheers from across the pond. Salut.
[1:53] Cheers, guys. Welcome. Let's go. Okay, Zach, right off the bat, how the heck do we go from aerospace engineering to filmmaking? What was \[laughs\]...
[2:03] What, what, what switched in the journey where you were like, "You know what? I am not feeling this anymore. I want to go full in to making films"?
[2:10] That's, that's actually a really funny story because, um, when I got into aerospace engineering, everybody asked like, "Oh, what was even before that?" And then I honestly did it 'cause it sounded cool.
[2:20] \[laughs\] Like, I hate to say it, but that's exactly why I started aerospace engineering, 'cause, like, I knew I wanted to get into sciences, maths, and everything like that.
[2:28] So I was like, "Okay, if I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna go all out." And the biggest thing in any field, I try to want to maximize it in terms of like, okay, what are the multiple paths in this that I can take?
[2:39] And the biggest for me was education, so like teaching, becoming a professor or something like that. Or research, so going into the technical and, you know, developing stuff. Or then just work in the industry.
[2:50] So I tried all those things. I did, uh, my master's degree there, where I could have done a PhD, got into teaching and everything like that.
[2:57] But it just, it just wasn't, didn't align with who I was and exactly what I wanted to do and the path that I wanted to create because it all came down to politics, even working with industry, that I just didn't, didn't wanna not...
[3:12] Just didn't wanna do in terms of when it came to my career path. So when it came to the transition from engineering to, um, I guess cinematography, that's what I do now.
[3:22] There's a little step in between, which was videography, and that's what I came from. Because I didn't even know what a cinematographer was when I was an engineer. I didn't know what that looked like.
[3:31] I didn't know what a director was. I didn't know all the things what it came behind the scenes when it came to shooting a movie. So I started off as a video professional and just making videos with friends.
[3:42] And, and it's funny enough because when I was in doing my undergrad in aerospace engineering, I started a UAV club, uh, the nerdiest thing that you could absolutely do.
[3:50] And then part of the stuff that we had to do is just build a drone, fly it, do a mission. So we had to put cameras and stuff on. And then I'm like, "Oh, this is really cool," about this whole capturing aspect of it.
[4:02] And then I bought a drone, and that was the DJI Spark at that time. And then I took it on a vacation out in the East Coast with my fa- family, and I just shot everywhere with it.
[4:10] But then I'm like, "Oh, this is really cool, but you can do this on ground, too." So it's kind of like reverse engineering what filmmaking is. It was really... It's a really backwards story from what it actually is.
[4:21] So then I started shooting stuff on my phone, and that's when I was like, "Okay, this is a great hobby. I'd like to pursue this on the side."
[4:28] Because ultimately I got into filmmaking and just this whole video aspect of business because I loved capturing memories and then the emotions that they evoked from just watching a video.
[4:39] I feel like that was a very special thing for me, and I wanted to basically pursue that as a hobby. So in 2018, I bought my first camera, which was the a7 III.
[4:48] And mind you, I was still doing my degree and everything like that.
[4:51] I was just doing everything on the side, shooting music videos, shooting car videos, shooting anything I could do just to get my feet off the ground and try different things.
[4:59] So it was the same concept that I applied to my engineering degree and working in that profession of like, okay, I kind of have to try everything.
[5:07] But with something that you're doing independently and it's also something that's so creative, like, it's hard to get into and break into the more s- things that are deemed cinematic.
[5:17] So I just started off as a video professional and a videographer, and I was just doing a bunch of gigs on the side.
[5:23] And then I got into product videos that, which kind of lifted off in terms of what this ac- actually could look like as a business. I had a bunch of clients and everything like that.
[5:31] And it was a poi- turning point, either I go full time into this videography aspect or I continue and do a PhD. And I was like, "No, I'll be 31 by the time I could see any type of money, and I don't wanna do that."
[5:45] So that's how I got into being a videographer. And not even being a cinematographer yet.
[5:51] Did friends and family think you were crazy for, in a way, like throwing away all these years of hard work, even though, like now looking back, you're like, "Man, I'm doing the damn thing at the highest level"?
[6:00] Like, what was that like- Yeah... internally when you're thinking like, "Man, I- I might wanna shoot these videos when people just don't understand the career path. It's still so new for most
[6:12] Oh, yeah, it's very new, and I came from a very traditional household where my parents were like, they raised me in the traditional way of like go to school, get a job, get that profession, you know, get a pension, 30 years out the gate, that's it.
[6:25] Right? Which is still valuable, which 100% I agree on 'cause that's the world that they grew up in. But then it was a hard pill for them to swallow, but they always, they always supported exactly what I was doing.
[6:35] So the thing that I had to do is I had to prove that like, hey, this can be profitable before I can go into it. I just didn't wanna go with a hope and a dream, then I'll figure it out.
[6:45] I needed to figure out some aspect for- for it because I didn't wanna take, excuse me, four years of my undergrad, three years of my master's, 16 months of working in, in a profession and just throw that all away.
[6:57] I just need to, you know, get my feet wet, and that's why I did it as a side thing for all those years while I was doing engineering. So I did get a lot of questions of like why. Like, why this specifically?
[7:08] It's such an opposite field. And I'm like, "I don't know, it just, it's calling to me. It's what I enjoy."
[7:13] And like I can even picture m- my dad picking up a camera and taking videos of when I w- I was kids with my siblings and everything like that.
[7:20] And like those things and that nostalgic had a connection with me, I guess, and those are the things that I was just drawn to.
[7:27] And I always had some artistic background because my dad did as well, and I feel like those skills just transferred over.
[7:32] So definitely a hard pill to first swallow for a lot of people, but I always had support, and there was no ever pushback on what I was doing. So it wasn't as easy as just showing them a really cool spec.
[7:42] They were like, "Show me the money, Zachary." \[laughs\] No, yeah. Here's your concept, baby. It was like, "Show me the money." \[laughs\] Yeah. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[7:50] Have you- And there was like some cool stuff I was doing, but it wasn't at any level of what... I, I gotta look back at this stuff and I'm like, "Oh, God." \[laughs\] Yeah.
[7:59] You're like, "If I was my parents and I saw these videos, I don't know." No, that's funny. I don't know. I would- Yeah. \[laughs\] Exactly. I'd do the same thing. Um, have you,
[8:09] since you stopped, have you since shot anything in the aerospace world? Ooh. No, I haven't. So... No, not in anything when it comes to the technical, like big companies and like that stuff. Like, not at all.
[8:26] All those connections that I've had are just kind of just sitting there in the background. Like I haven't- Mm-hmm... that's a actually great op- business opportunity I, I should look into more. You're welcome.
[8:37] Dude- You're welcome... I've been, we've done some aerospace stuff this year. Yeah. Thank you. Bags. I'm just gonna open up my clientele by like half now. \[laughs\] Bags in aerospace world, man. Yeah, dude. You should.
[8:45] That, that would- I feel like that'd be cool. It'd be a full circle, full circle moment. Um, can you explain the difference between a videographer and a cinematographer? 'Cause I think pe- a lot of people- Okay...
[8:54] might think that it's just same thing, just a different word. Bigger camera. Yeah. Bigger camera. \[laughs\] Bigger camera, fancier word. Yeah. \[laughs\] That's like the biggest misconception I feel like.
[9:04] A videographer is somebody who captures. So you know, you get hired to capture an event or something that's going on, and then there's no intention and planning behind it.
[9:14] Sure that you're gonna have your ideas as soon as you get there to get the best thing, get best angles. There's an intention with that. But with cinematography, you are planning as soon as you get a creative.
[9:25] So this is sometimes days of a process, hours of a process, and it could be weeks and months of a process. There's a lot more intention I feel with cinematography and planning of exactly what you're trying to capture.
[9:37] With a videographer, you're just seeing like something's there, I'm gonna make it look as best as possible.
[9:42] Well, with cinematography you have something there, okay, and then there's so many questions that go into it in terms of mood, look, feel, how the camera's gonna actually live in the space, how the subject is gonna interact with it, what emotion are we trying to get out of the audience.
[9:59] There's just so many other factors that go into it, and the biggest thing I feel like a cinematographer actually does is be a team leader and a team player, as well as somebody who just plans everything.
[10:11] What does it look like from your pre-production process? What are the apps that you like to use?
[10:16] And I, I found the videos that I've loved the most from you are when you're showing, "Hey, here's this scene, and this is how I'm thinking about using my lights, and this is what I sent out to the team," because if you haven't worked on a bigger commercial, I think the biggest thing people don't realize is how expensive waiting is, and how potentially like thou- Oh...
[10:35] thousands of dollars are being pissed away by you not moving and shooting things. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you, you spoke to it exactly like that.
[10:44] On the day of production, there's so much money just being put into every body that is there, and there's so many things that have come. So like that's, I feel like a bigger conversation.
[10:54] But going back to what I like to use. So right now is like a extremely busy time for me, which is fantastic. I'm so happy about that.
[11:01] And I was just on a tech scout before this for an IKEA job that Sophia and I are working on, that we're super excited for. Almost like a dream client for us.
[11:09] And then, um, the big apps that I like to use, because as the cinematographer, director of photography, I'm not on the camera a lot.
[11:19] Yeah, I, there's a lot of times where I'm operating, but I'm just communicating to my gaffer who's in charge of the lighting, the key grip who's in charge of safety, as well as how things are going to live in the space, rigs specifically.
[11:33] My first AC who is going to be operating everything on the camera. So those are the three main guys and team that I'm talking to. So on, when I'm planning for everything, the biggest apps I like to use are Sunseeker.
[11:44] It's always great to know where the sun is. And a lot of the times when you're doing videography gigs or something low-end cinematography when their budget isn't big enough, the sun is going to be your best, best friend.
[11:55] But on these bigger commercial sets, it's your worst enemy because now we're just trying to avoid the sun. Yeah, this would be great.
[12:02] The sun is in the perfect position when we're gonna shoot But we're probably gonna be here for two hours, and then we're gonna have to get, like, eight different takes.
[12:10] So then now I'm talking to my guys, "Okay, let's block out the sun. Let's plan to shoot at a different time," and everything like that. So Sunseeker is the biggest one.
[12:18] The second one I like to use is either bring an FX3 if I have one on standby. But if it's not the right focal lengths that we tu- want to use, 'cause I just use a 24 to 70, CAD Rage is my biggest friend.
[12:30] I just shot three pre-vises today of what, what that, this actual commercial is gonna look like. So it allows you to communicate to the team exactly what is going to happen.
[12:40] Once I started pre-vising, like, all my projects, like, all the doubt and all the worry that it takes to be a cinematographer...
[12:48] Because imagine you're walking into this room, and everybody's looking for you towards the answers in terms of lighting, where things are gonna live, how the camera's gonna move through the space.
[12:57] Uh, production designers are coming up to me, "Are we gonna see this? Is this important?"
[13:01] And then I'm like, once I just say, like, "Hey, this is exactly how everything is gonna operate on the day," by shooting a simple pre-vis.
[13:08] So that's taking the focal length I intend to use, the camera I intend to use on CAD Rage, and then just shooting the shots, and then putting them together, probably do this this, the evening, and send it out to the whole production.
[13:18] Then everybody's like, "Okay, we can do that. We don't need to do that." And it just makes everything so much easier.
[13:25] What's interesting about what you just explained is that there's only a s- it's a smaller percentage than I think what most people might expect as far as what it takes to be a good cinematographer of the actual technical skill of, like, how to use a camera.
[13:41] Yeah. You're, you're communicating, you're leading a team. Can you talk to that about...
[13:46] I mean, you kinda just did, but, like, how, what percentage would you say is important to be a good cine- cinematographer, the technical aspect versus other things?
[13:56] Yeah, so y- you nailed it right on the head because as I'm talking about these things, like, what, what's it take to be a, a, a commercial cinematographer, the main thing I'm gonna talk about is, like, being a team player and how to communicate.
[14:07] I feel like communicating is the biggest thing, and then the technical skills is, like, I would say maybe 50% 'cause you still need to know what you're doing. Yeah. But all the other skills, they're another 50%.
[14:18] But a lot of people would think, "Oh, if I know cameras in and out, if I know lighting in and out 90%, I'm gonna take it."
[14:25] But if you're a terrible person to work with or you just don't wanna communicate or you don't even know how to communicate your ideas to anybody else or even your director, everything's gonna go downhill, 'cause once one, once there's a misalignment on set, it's like a well-oiled machine.
[14:39] And then once something jams up, everything else jams up. So the biggest thing when I'm working on set right now is that, for example, for lighting. You have to be a good cinematographer.
[14:52] You have to know lighting and basically what you want and what you're drawn towards too, and where to place your lights and everything like that. But that is the gaffer's job as well.
[15:00] As a director of photography, as a cinematographer, I am directing the photography. I'm directing what's happening. So I'm leaning on other peoples who are experts in that field.
[15:11] So for example, today when we're on this job, I'm like, "Okay, I want the light coming through the window. This is what I'm thinking." And then he's like, "Okay, great.
[15:18] Based on the package truck, I recommend that we do this, this, and this, and this." And then my key grip is right beside. He's like, "Okay, what fabrics do you want? What's, what, what, uh, softness?
[15:28] Are you going for something more narrative or something more commercial?" I'm like, "I definitely want to wrap, uh, around the face so it's a little bit more softer, more commercial."
[15:36] So then he, great, he says the fabrics that we're gonna need for the project. So I don't have to get into the nitty-gritty.
[15:42] I can just focus on the top level and go back and forth with the director of what exactly we're trying to do so I can nail that, and then I can give all the rest of the technical stuff to the techs, and that's what their jobs are for.
[15:55] You know, I think that was one of the biggest anxieties for me when I was coming into the space of being, coming from being a videographer to being a DP, is I didn't know who were the folks that you were gonna be communicating with the most.
[16:08] 'Cause as a videographer, you show up, and you just crush the thing, and you're kinda like the only person you gotta worry about and, like, not making the talent trip and fall.
[16:16] And, like, you did a great job if you did that, you know?
[16:19] Whereas if you come to a film set, it's so different between the people that you're communicating with, and also there's so many heads that it can get overwhelming, where you're like, "Am I supposed to talk to, like, all these people, or am I just talking to, like- Yeah...
[16:29] my three head of the, their departments?"
[16:32] Can you take us back to when you maybe first got an opportunity to maybe just get on a crew of, like, four or five people, and what that process was like, and maybe what those biggest learnings are?
[16:40] 'Cause I think that there's a lot of people that might be listening to this that are like, "I aspire to make the films and the commercials that Zach's making."
[16:47] But they're not gonna hop onto a, a team of 15 people tomorrow. They might hop onto a team of, like, four or five, and what advice you have to them to come out with something successful. Yeah.
[16:57] I feel like the biggest thing, 'cause, like, I can connect with that. Even now I still get nerves communicating with people and then walking onto sets.
[17:06] Like, um, for example, like, this past month I've had a commercial a week, and then my guys that I always use all the time are booked and busy on other jobs, so I have to get their recos, or I have to go ref through recos or recos.
[17:19] And then now I'm working with a team of almost 20 people who are just for lighting, grip, and camera that I haven't worked for before.
[17:27] So there's a lot of times where you're gonna be walking into new spaces, and you have to have that confidence to be like, "Okay, everybody's here to follow your vision." And you can't get caught up on that as well.
[17:37] So I feel like there's, like, two examples I can give you where I've stepped into a set and just took a backseat.
[17:44] It was the first time where I was actually asked to be a lighting assistant for a photography job, and it was with Connor McDavid and the Oilers, and they were shooting at a rink, uh, just north of the city here at Downsview Park.
[17:59] And then I was just like, "Yeah, I'll be your lighting tech."
[18:02] At that time I was still, you know, the- Making the transition into a cinematographer, but somebody just needed help with lighting, and I was gaffing at that time too.
[18:10] So it really helped in terms of just learning and being on bigger sets.
[18:13] And then as soon as I got there, there's a still team that I was as- associated with, and then there's a motion team that was just doing all the bigger shots. And as soon as I get there, there's like 40 people.
[18:25] There's 20 trailers. There's a techno crane getting put on the ice. There's like cabling going in and out of the arena. And then I'm like, "What am I doing?" 'Cause I just gotta bounce.
[18:36] \[laughs\] And that's what I'm doing for stills, and that's it, right? So what I did in that job is obviously I was helping the photographer and everything, but I was watching, I was...
[18:44] And the main thing I was watching is not necessarily the technicality of like, oh, what camera are they using? Oh, how are they getting this techno crane? What's the op doing? I'm like, that's not my interest.
[18:54] My interest is how the director and the cinematographer are communi- communicating, and then how the cinematographer communicates to the rest of the team. He's not going to go up and adjust all those lights.
[19:05] He radio somebody and does it, and tells them exactly what they want. And then the director is communicating to them of like, "Oh, we wanna do this. What do you think?"
[19:14] And then, then them going back and forth, and those were the things I was paying attention to that was really cool to me. And it was just like, wow, I feel like that's where the direction I wanna go. How can I do that?
[19:25] And it wasn't a technicality. It was more of like communicating, and then there's a reason why these people are getting hired for this job. How do you get on set though?
[19:36] I think that, uh, like a lot of- \[laughs\] You know what I'm saying? Like, how did you even- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[19:40] 'Cause I think that, I think- So the biggest thing \[laughs\] I was just gonna say, I think a lot of people- No, go ahead...
[19:44] listen to it and, and think, you know, yeah, it would be really cool to see firsthand how everybody's- It'd be cool. \[laughs\] How everybody's working together, you know, and learn. But- Right...
[19:53] I think from a lot of the people that we talk to and, uh, you know, help out, they're always asking like, "How do I even get on set or make these connections to get hired in the first place?"
[20:05] Do you have any advice for that? Okay. So the biggest thing that you can ask for, because I feel like a lot of people are like have some video backing. They have a camera. Yeah.
[20:14] They have everything set up, and they wanna get on these bigger sets. The biggest thing is use that to your advantage and shoot, ask to shoot BTS. Mm.
[20:20] I feel like that's the biggest thing and most valuable thing, and then a lot of cinematographers, a lot of directors are now realizing that, of what, that's what they need to put out work.
[20:30] And it, that's what I constantly do because any city that I'm in and I, I post that I'm shooting a project, I get a lot of people that reach out to me like, "Yo, I'll come out. I'll just be a PA on hands."
[20:39] And I'm like, "Unfortunately, I can't just bring on a PA as a camera person, but I can always bring on a BTS person." So people reaching out to cinematographers to shoot BTS, that's a really opt- good option to do.
[20:50] And unfortunately, if you, uh, like a director or somebody that you, uh, are looking at and seeing social media and just wanna reach out to them, and you ask, "Hey, can I just P on your, PA on your set?"
[21:00] Unfortunately, they don't have the authority to do that. You have to ask the producers.
[21:04] You have to ask the people who are actually hiring these people and bringing them on, and it's just like, oh yeah, I can just say, hey, um, to my PM, or sorry, production manager, production coordinator, producer, and saying, "Hey, do you mind if I bring this PA on?"
[21:19] And they're gonna tell me to probably get lost. \[laughs\] Right? But if it's just like a BTS person reach out to me, "Hey, gonna be bringing this BTS person.
[21:27] I'm gonna pay them out of pocket," or they offer their services pro bono, "Do you mind just that we can feed them on set?" And it's 95% of the time I get a yes from that.
[21:36] So that's a great option to do it, and then just reach out and talk to people.
[21:40] I feel like that's the biggest thing, and it's the hardest thing because to get somebody out on a call or even on a coffee or anything like that is tough, but you gotta cast your net wide if you really want it.
[21:50] This industry is super competitive, and the people who are on bigger sets just even PA-ing and stuff like that made one connection, and then they tried really hard to get that connection as well.
[22:00] Something that I think you've done so well is you make things without being asked to make them, and we've probably said it like 1,000 times on the show that the spec jobs are how you will get paid.
[22:12] Like, no one's ever gonna call you and be like, "Zach, we're ready to bring you up to the big leagues, man. You have what it takes." \[laughs\] Like, no one's ever gonna call you and do that- No...
[22:19] unless they can see that you're capable of doing the thing 'cause then the risk goes down. Can you talk about- Still waiting for that call. \[laughs\] Can you talk about- \[laughs\]... how you think of these spec projects?
[22:31] Do you invest into them? You obviously also have, you have a fantastic camera. You have a great team around you that you've worked with, but how do you think about making these different spec projects?
[22:40] Spec work is the foundation of any great cinematographer, any great director.
[22:46] It's just if you have somewhere that you wanna be, and you're, it's gonna take a while to get there because I started in 2018 picking up my first camera, and now it's eight years later, and I'm at like a level of a commercial cinematographer.
[23:02] But it takes levels to get there. You're not gonna go out and shoot your dream spec the first time.
[23:09] You're gonna shoot something that is important to you, that you can do with what the means and everything that you have to actually execute it at this time, and then you're gonna continuously level up.
[23:20] I remember just before that we started this, I was on a AstraZeneca job last week, and the only reason that we got this job is because Sophia, who's my fiance, who we shoot almost everything together, and, uh, we shot this New Balance spec because she approached me, and she's like, "I really want to shoot a fashion spec, but make it commercial and make it mine, make it my own voice, and kind of level up our portfolio."
[23:45] And that's exactly what we did. I know this is at a higher level, and we paid for everything ourselves, and it, and it costs, it does cost a lot of money, does cost a lot to invest in yourself.
[23:54] And then we put that out, I don't even know how many months ago, maybe six months ago, and now we're seeing the fruits of our labor return with a actual, like, real paying job with a big production company, big name behind it, and it, it looks exactly like that commercial.
[24:08] Right? So spec is super important, and the only that way that you're gonna do it is either with funds or with friends Mm Those are those two things that I like always to say. And it's a, it's a fun one, right?
[24:21] \[laughs\] And you'll always level up, because a lot of people will get caught up of like, "Oh, it doesn't look like... Even like comparing it to my work, it doesn't look like that."
[24:30] I'm like, "Do you think that my first spec looked like that?" It looked like it was terrible. \[laughs\] Not terrible. It was great at the time, but then I kept leveling up and trying different things.
[24:38] If you learn one new skill from that spec, if you meet one new person, a director, gaffer, PA, anything, that is a benefit to exactly what you're doing in your career.
[24:49] Because I've made so many connections over this eight-year journey, and those connections have gotten me so much work now, where it's just a constant I've, I've put that web out far, and now it's just every time, every maybe two months, one of those p- people hits me up for a job, and it just works out like that.
[25:07] Feel free to tell me to fuck off, but can you share how much you actually spent and invested in that New Balance spec? Because I think a lot of people- I don't know. Like, I- I'd love to know- Costless...
[25:16] like how much you spent and where did you, how, where did the money go? So the biggest thing for us that when we were creating that, uh, commercial was that we were like, "Okay, what money do we have now?
[25:27] What jobs do we have coming in? What can we afford?" And we're like, "Okay, we kinda want this to be a stable piece," so we're like, "$10,000 Canadian. Let's, let's try that," right?
[25:36] And then we start getting people on board. Everybody came out pro bono. Um, and then we're, the biggest thing that you have to look at is art and location.
[25:44] That's the biggest thing in Sophia's work, is all her production design, all her locations are spot on. And then also just working with a lot of people that just exactly know what we're doing, right?
[25:55] So things started adding up, whereas you, we were like, "Oh, we wanna do all these camera transitions naturally." And obviously we own our own camera, so it helped out a lot.
[26:02] But then we got a dolly involved, we got the proper dolly grips, extras. Art started q- adding up, so by the end of it, we paid 14,000, but it was absolutely worth it. You love the dolly, man. Right.
[26:15] And there's- The dolly's great. \[laughs\] I, I love, I love working off a dolly now. That's like, I've been spoiled, and then I've been spoi- spoiled with dolly grips. That's all what I love to do now.
[26:24] But the biggest thing, actually, I learned this on a job recently, is, um, that yes, it's great to bring in a dolly, a Chapman, or a Primo, whatever the hell you want into any space, but if it doesn't make sense, don't do it.
[26:37] Just don't, don't do it. Don't. Spare the headache and everything. I recently worked on, like, a six-figure job where we used a Dana dolly, and it worked.
[26:45] \[laughs\] Just because I was sa- saving the production a couple, uh, couple bucks, as well as, like, I didn't wanna lug that thing down a flight of stairs, and then back up, and everything like that.
[26:55] I love it, but only when it makes sense. Mm. The Dana dolly is a, is just the one of the best investments. Stable. Yeah, one of the best investments. Yeah. Thing's a beast, dude.
[27:04] And you can get- You can achieve, like, a similar level of thing. Obviously, like, you can't go fucking up, but- You can, it's, you can achieve the same exact thing and you just can't go up. Yeah. \[laughs\] Okay.
[27:15] I do- I'm, like, itching to get into breaking down this new- Oh... the new Aquafina, uh- Oh, yeah. That just came out?... spot that you just dropped. Dude, so- Yeah... you go, we go all the way out to Morocco.
[27:27] How the heck was it work- Yeah... work- Before we break it down, how was it working with a crew in a totally new country? Oh, yeah. To give you some preface of how we got the job- Yes...
[27:35] 'cause that's another crazy story. Sophia got a DM, and then she was like, "Oh, this just feels sketchy" \[laughs\]... uh, from a producer, her name's Raja, about like, "Hey, I have this job. Let's get on a call."
[27:46] And then Sophia was like, "Hey, can you... What, what are the details?" And they're like, "No, let's get on a call."
[27:51] So she got on a call, and then, uh, she made a pitch for Aquafina and everything, and then she was bidding against multiple directors. And then it was a long pitching process.
[27:59] It was, like, a week of going back and forth, and then she won it. And then we flew out literally, like, five days later. And then- Five days? That's crazy. Oh my God. Yeah. Right after, like, the pitch.
[28:10] Yeah, it was crazy. And then, um, yeah, the biggest thing for me is, like, the team was great because they had so many different chats on...
[28:18] We were using WhatsApp to communicate of like, oh, camera, genie, and all this stuff, and everything like that. Sending us the locations. Everybody was on top of everything. Uh, but the only thing is there in Morocco,
[28:30] and then other places where work is cheaper to do, it's like the Wild West. \[laughs\] I can only imagine. It's guaranteed, like, something, something's broken or something doesn't work.
[28:42] And the funniest thing that I experienced is, like, we land and then, uh, and this is, I think we l- we took off at, like, 3:00 PM, and then we landed the next day at, like, 10:00 AM, got off the flight, Uber'd us to our hotel, took a, like a, a 15-minute shower, location scouts and fittings that same day, prep the next day, then shoot- Oh my God...
[29:04] and then fly back. So we're in and out in the span of four days, and then we stayed an extra day just to visit the city and everything like that. Wow. But it was, it was nonstop, but it, but it was so much fun.
[29:15] And when it comes to gear, 'cause I imagine you can't rent anything in Morocco when it comes to gear. Oh, no, no, you can. There's like two big rental houses. Oh, amazing.
[29:25] But the thing is that it's always out and always busy. So they gave me a list, and then I'm like, "Okay, this is how it usually works. These are my nice to haves.
[29:32] I'd like this," and then they got back to me, so there was communication between that. But when you actually show up to the prep and rental house- \[laughs\]... nothing was there, because it was on a previous job- No...
[29:43] and it was still out, and they were like, "Oh, everything will be there in the morning." \[laughs\] Oh. So- Famous last- That's just how they work... famous last words. Wow. Yeah.
[29:52] That's how they work, and I was like, "Okay, like, there's nothing I can do here. There's no point of making a fuss or anything like that."
[29:58] But generally, like, in Canada, how it works is like, okay, I'll put a hold on gear. Then they'll give us to it... Not give us, we'll go to the rental house a day before, bring in the camera.
[30:07] If I'm prepping a camera there, prep the camera there, take it home, and then go to our shoot day. Mm.
[30:12] No, they're like, "Okay, we can get this stuff ready, but then we're gonna prep the morning of," and I'm like, "Guys, this is crazy." Damn. They did it. It was great, but, ah, it was- Did you bring your camera?...
[30:23] it was not how I like to l- work. Did you bring your camera? Pardon me? Did you bring your camera? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay No. No, I, I, I didn't wanna risk it. \[laughs\] I... Yeah, I wouldn't either.
[30:32] Okay, so tell me this, before we break it down. Differences- Yeah... between doing, uh, a shoot local versus traveling to another country.
[30:41] There's a lot more unknowns with traveling to a lot of cou- uh, uh, another country, 'cause I've done it multiple times in the States, where you're working with new crew, and then this is my first, uh, job internationally.
[30:52] So in the States, it's very similar, right, to Canada. It's the same concept. Everybody works to that.
[30:58] But working internationally, I was like, I was very intimidated because I'm like, "Okay, I don't know exactly how they work, how they communicate, of how things or run a show is."
[31:08] And it's slightly different, but everything was like 90% the same. So the biggest thing for me was just communicating to everybody of like, "Oh, what do we have available? How can we make it work?"
[31:18] So that was just ensuring that all the gear was ready, but it was a very, like, trusting people. Mm-hmm. Because I'm, I'm... I like to be on top of everything. Like, I usually bring in my own camera.
[31:29] Everything's already prepped. Wires. Yeah. I have triples of everything, 'cause I've had stuff fail on me before. But there, like, it was just like, "Yeah. If it fails, it fails." I'm like, "Okay." Right? Yeah.
[31:41] So it was, it was very stressful, and it was just having to go back to the, my roots of what it means to be a cinematographer and a director of photography and step into that role there.
[31:53] People are looking up to me because, especially there, when they have somebody who's considered, I'm considered American, Western- Uh-huh... come over and shoot a commercial, it's a huge deal. Like, huge deal.
[32:05] The amount of respect and everything that I got there from all the crew was amazing, and they were like, "Whatever you do, you know, we'll do whatever you need to do and get it done."
[32:15] So there was a big respect and everything like that, but it was a little bit too much, where I'm like, "Guys, like, we need to get the job done. We need to move a lot faster.
[32:23] I will pick up the camera and move it where we need to be." Mm. "You guys don't need to do everything for me. I'm not, like, a pampered person." Right? "I'm usually in the trenches with you guys."
[32:31] And we kind of figured that halfway through the day, and then that's when it started, things started to pick up.
[32:36] But it was, it was a big learning experience for myself in terms of how to basically communicate to different crews, because then English was a huge thing too, because, uh, they have their native language there, but a lot of people speak French as well, and their English, there was some crew members that didn't speak it well enough.
[32:52] So that was a big thing about battling that. But when it comes to universal hand signals, it was great. \[laughs\] Nice. And then why Morocco? Like, did you guys get hit up?
[33:01] Was it an agency out of Morocco that hit you guys up? So yeah, the agent- the agency was Brand Builder, and then that commercial was supposed to be airing in Casablanca, Morocco specifically. I see. So that was just...
[33:14] Yeah, and the production company is based in Morocco as well. Wow. So the reason that they reached out to Sophia is because she did a, she did a spec piece- Ah... and this was- Man...
[33:24] two and a half years ago that she did this, and it was for Sony, and it, and she wrote the whole thing with her, one of her classmates about sound and something that was important to her about- Oh, was it in the library?
[33:33] ... overstimulation. The library one. That's how we got the job. So good. That one was so good. Yeah.
[33:40] Yeah, yeah, so I, I gaffed on that one, 'cause we were early on in our career, so we kinda did everything for each other. Um, and then the reason that...
[33:48] It's the same exact look, same exact feel with sound and everything like that. They just wanted to elevate it to this level. So I forgot to add in, that was super important. That's exactly why we got the job. Wow.
[33:58] So spec. Spec is super important. Bang. Let's look at it, shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. I'm pulling it up.
[34:05] \[upbeat music\] \[horn honking\] \[traffic whooshing\] \[birds chirping\] \[sighs\] \[gentle music\] \[foreign language\] Bang.
[34:43] Have no idea what it said at the end there, but- But I like it. That's so good. That was sick. Yeah. \[laughs\] It's beautiful. Talk me through the wide shot. Okay. So I'm kind of playing it back and forth here.
[34:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was... Like, when we got this shot, like, the energy on set was absolutely crazy, because we, in the tech scout, we were like, "Okay, this is our corridor. This is exactly what we want.
[35:07] We're gonna fill it up with cars," but there's a tram in the background which is, like, notable for the area, especially in Casablanca.
[35:15] So the b- uh, the agency Brand Builder was like, "We need that tram in the background." \[laughs\] And we're like, "Okay, someone's gonna have to stand down the street. They're gonna have to radio us when one's coming."
[35:24] So we did a bunch of, uh, blocking rehearsals, and then we had, like, I think, like, 30 background here or something- \[laughs\] Yeah... crazy like that. Shit ton of people. So
[35:33] people walking across the front in the frame there. This guy, his name was actually Zachary as well, the, um, guy on the moped. \[laughs\] Uh, but e- his name was Zachary, so that was pretty cool.
[35:43] And then there's a bunch of people in the cars honking, walking in the background. There's, like, people everywhere, and that's the biggest thing when you're trying to make a shot like this come together.
[35:54] It's not about lighting. It's not about, um, anything that's going awro- along in terms of camera movement either. I would say it's mainly about what's go- happening in frame- Mm... with the people, with so many things.
[36:06] So in the foreground, we have those people. Uh, in the midground, we have the guy in the car, and in the background, we have that train going at the same time.
[36:14] And then funny enough, uh, the colors that we worked with a lot, Jason Zukowski, who's in Toronto here, uh, great dude, and he actually did a lot of the effects on this in terms of replacing the skies, so that sky is actually fake.
[36:27] Um- So as a cinematographer approaching this, they're like, "Okay, what el- what else can we do?"
[36:33] 'Cause ideally we land here at, like, 1:00, and then the sun is kinda shooting down the corridor, and that's what we planned, but we only got here at 2:00. So I'm like, "Okay, I guess I'm adding my own light."
[36:44] So we had a bunch of lights on the, uh, left side- Mm-hmm... which is camera left over here, just blasting through just to add texture everywhere that's going.
[36:54] So I believe that we had, uh, Aperture X52 and X26, and then, like, a 1200D on a spotlight. So pretty big lights, especially when it comes to LED specifically.
[37:05] And then the main thing that I'm trying to do is, like, of, of course, hit my talent in the car, add some streak of light here so it looks like the sun is coming from there, and then paint the cars in the background, as well as this little car that we see in the right and that wall.
[37:21] It doesn't make sense at all because if you look in the background, the sun direction is actually coming from the left and hitting the buildings. Hmm. But when it comes to commercials, it doesn't matter. \[laughs\] Yeah.
[37:31] You just need to add- Make it look, make it look sick, man... a little bit of... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You just need to add a little bit of light.
[37:37] And then actually if you play it through, you see some smoke coming from the left.
[37:40] We had a little smoke and haze machine next to the lights, 'cause I knew the light, that would bring that out more, so it looks like a car was stalled.
[37:48] So this was just, like, a beautiful mix-mash of, like, timing as well as working with the AD and director to make sure that everything was flowing as smooth as possible, but it was a lot of yelling.
[38:01] \[laughs\] And just a lot of just planning to get the perfect shot. How long did it take you to get this shot? Uh, I would say it was pretty quick. I think we...
[38:10] Once we landed, and, yeah, we got picture up, took us 30 minutes, and probably, like, maybe five takes to get this. Nice. Yeah.
[38:17] And then, and w- how we exactly did it is we had a, um, um, a Movitech dolly that could go up and down, and it was just, like, a, a turret-based one.
[38:28] And then we put a bazooka on top of that so we could get the camera up another about probably three feet, and so it gave us that wide sweeping coming down. Almost looks like a, uh, Technocrane- Hmm...
[38:39] 'cause that's usually what's associated with, like, these big car and movie-like scenes, some big sweeping movement. So that's exactly how we got that push and gypped out at the same time. Let's go to- Yeah...
[38:51] the scene at, we got the wide of the cafe at 1:02:48. It's just so cool. You have so, so much talent in here. Yeah. I mean, we got... I love the, the light- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... the lights coming in.
[39:03] Huh. Before we get to this one. The road, like, on the first shot, you guys had that blocked off? Yeah. Yeah, so we had cops at the f- back and at the front.
[39:13] And then this opens up into, like, a big three-way split of a street. So they had that all sectioned off, and then all our G&E trucks and generators are behind that. And then we had the whole square blocked off. Wow.
[39:24] So yeah, to do that in Canada or do it in where you guys, it costs so much money. Uh-huh. But there, everything is just a lot cheaper to do. And then, like, we had local taxi drivers.
[39:35] These, these are all, like, local people- Wow... which is really cool. And then there's a bunch of people just randomly sitting and standing in the background. Those are locals as well.
[39:43] Like, they didn't care, and it was great. \[laughs\] That's sick. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's amazing. I just, I just had to ask 'cause it's such a grand shot- Oh, yeah... you know? For, for- Yeah, yeah.
[39:54] And then- For our cafe- Yeah... our cafe, I mean, we got a lotta extras, lights just flooding in through these windows, and we're getting it perfectly on our girl in the middle. She... I, I love the...
[40:04] I love how she's wearing the yellow, too, 'cause- Yeah... immediately when I saw it, I was like, "Okay, boom," like, "That's my girl." Like, "That's who I'm supposed to be looking at." Yeah.
[40:10] Yeah, so that, that's a huge thing with the director choosing in terms of, like... That's what Sophia likes to do.
[40:15] She likes to, uh, choose colors and things that, like, designate, "Okay, this is my, my hero talent is gonna wear. This is how we're gonna make her pop. This is how exactly we're gonna do that."
[40:24] And the big thing that she wanted in this scene specifically is, like, she's in the third s- golden ratio. You can even notice that, like, the, the stool, the, uh, that she's... Yeah... not stool. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.
[40:34] The table that she's sitting on is orange itself. Yeah. So these things are all intentional that she wanted specifically, and that's how you pop out your main character that you're trying to do.
[40:44] But to speak about this scene was just, like, a lot of blocking. And then we started this. This was the first, um, shot of the entire production. So we started in this cafe, I believe, at 10:00 AM.
[40:55] And to give you guys even more context, this was supposed to be, like, a 12-hour day with maybe two hours of overtime. It would turn into a 16-hour day, so it was pretty nuts. \[laughs\] Wow. Wow.
[41:06] But to just talk about the scene, we had, uh, our X52s, X, as well as X26 outside just flooding the entire cafe.
[41:15] And what I like to do, I don't know if you guys seen in my YouTube videos and stuff like that, is, like, I like to analyze things and be like, "Oh, I made a mistake here."
[41:24] And the biggest mistake that I made is not having these lights high enough because it was so stressful, and it was, like, so things that I couldn't really focus on the minor details.
[41:33] But a thing I should've done is because you can tell that those are lights. Hmm. Uh, what I had the colorists do is kinda blend this in so it looks like one big sun. Hmm. But the sun wouldn't be there.
[41:43] Or I'm like, "Oh, you could sell it. That's reflecting off the windows." So that's something that actually bothered me when we were doing this.
[41:49] But I shoulda had my h- lights a whole lot higher and just clipping the edge of that. But that was just due to a timing thing, and we just didn't have time to really finesse everything.
[41:58] I kinda just put my lights there, and I'm like, "Guys, let's do this." But the biggest thing that you guys asked in terms of how we popped her out, that there is actually a Lightmat 4 behind that column.
[42:09] Uh, and it's, it's an LED. It's about maybe four feet by three feet wide, and it's blasting all that light onto her to give some lift and pop her out. Hmm.
[42:19] Because if you look at everybody else in the ca- cafe, super high contrast, super- Yeah... uh, dark shadows and everything like that. But if you look at her, she's just lifted. So that's exactly how we did that.
[42:30] And then when we were planning at the scout, I'm like, "Hey- God, that pole was there because it just made our life easy 'cause we could just work off the floor When you shoot a scene, do you like to start with the wide first and then get to the details?
[42:43] Yeah. That's what we've learned is, like, we like to sh- shoot our widest or most complicated scene when it comes to either camera movement or just the amount of blocking.
[42:54] So when it comes to camera movement, I kinda put that a last. I kinda talk to her- to, Sophia in terms of this case, of like, "Hey, what's gonna be the biggest lift for you?" She's like, "I got 25 extras.
[43:05] We gotta direct them all. Let's get this scene out of the way." Because a lot of the other shots in this are a lot more technical.
[43:12] This one was actually very awkward because we had to put a dolly on a stairway, and then ratchet strap the front of the doll- uh, a slider to the railing because it was so uneven.
[43:23] And then because usually you don't do, uh, dollies, like, straight down into something or on a angle. They're usually straight or going side to side. So th- there's no really clean way to do this.
[43:36] I had to muscle the camera up and down constantly on this thing. Yeah And that, it was, it was very stressful. \[laughs\] Man. And then when you push in, what changes? So do you just...
[43:46] Are you bringing in the light mat to the shot of where we're pushing through the two characters that are in the foreground? I love the, uh, the blocking on this- Yeah, blocking's cool...
[43:55] is phenomenal Like the phone, and then I like how also- Oh, yeah... you got a little kiss of light on his face too. Like, I really like that. Yeah. With that light, dark, light, dark. Yeah. So when it goes into
[44:05] this, um, I always like to look at my images of popping in salt and pepper or a checkerboard of light, dark, light, dark. Mm.
[44:15] So if we look at his face, we got some light there, and then it goes into shadow, and then automatically to her with the light, and then background and everything that just blends in.
[44:26] And then even sneaking in more dark with this other talent that we snuck in here.
[44:31] So if you look back to the wide and kinda cut between this, we had to do a lot of cheating to make sure that this looked good as well as continuity was still into place.
[44:43] So we kinda shifted all the tables everywhere to make this work. But for lighting, I just used a small ADC and blasted it at his face to give that sunlight to wrap that around.
[44:52] Uh, the light mat is still in play on her left side here, and then we still have all those lights outside.
[44:59] So that's why I like to start with my wide scenes, scenes specifically because then I'll set a big look with all the big lights outside and everything like that.
[45:07] Then everything on the floor, which is like my key and my hair light or a tube or anything like that, I just kinda move around to make work.
[45:15] And then when we're doing the scout and then communicating with my team, I like to do lighting diagrams.
[45:20] I do this for all my jobs now, and then I've actually got a lot of comments from key grips and gaffers to say, like, "Do you know that nobody does this? Everybody just shows up, and we kind of figure out what they want."
[45:32] So I like to plan everything to say like, "Hey, this is 90% of what I want, and then the extra 10%, we can finesse on set." For this shot specifically, the second shot in this scene with the blocking- Yeah...
[45:48] what T-stop are you at? Ah, so we wanted to do a split diopter 'cause we wanted to kind of try something different because we wanted this phone to be in focus. Mm.
[45:58] It is still slightly out of focus and everything like that, but you can see now the background, even the guy in the back, he's super sharp. Yeah. So we were shooting on the Cooke XEs, and then those stop down to 1.8.
[46:09] And then at 1.8, you wouldn't be able to see what's going on in the background that much- No... or even in the foreground. So we shot this at a T10 or a T8, I think. We were talking to- Yeah...
[46:19] uh, we had a podcast not too long ago with, um, another DP, and he was talking about how important
[46:27] F-stop is, T-stops is because I think when you're first starting out, you often think, "Let's just shoot fucking wide open, baby." \[laughs\] Like shallow depth of field. Wide open.
[46:36] \[laughs\] But to your point, like- Yeah... all the work that Sophia puts into, you know, the, all the decisions that she makes, and it's some...
[46:45] When he told us this, Carlo, when he told us this on the podcast, I was like, "Oh, that makes so much sense." It's like there's, uh, there's- You wanna show it off...
[46:52] there's the art department and the mise-en-scene of everything going on in the frame. And so it's like if you're just shooting, you know, wide open, you miss a lot of the details that so much effort was put into it.
[47:04] Yeah. And then, yeah, that's exactly what you do. It's just like you're given a beautiful canvas by your director or art department, and then, like, you have to show it off.
[47:14] Like, that's the difference when it comes to high-level productions. And I feel like when people shoot at 1.8, 1.4, or something like that, it's, it's distracting of what the actual narrative is.
[47:24] Technically, it looks great, but in motion, it just, it throws things off, right? So that's why I stay away from filters. I stay away from shooting like that, and I usually shoot at a T8, uh, 2, 2.8 to a T4.
[47:38] Talk to us about the, the shot at where we're at the library, and we got this beautiful streak of light hitting the table. And we got, like, four, three main talent- Oh, the wide? Yeah, yeah, the wide.
[47:51] So is there- I can arrange this... is there a light mat that's tucked behind the person rolling the cart? \[laughs\] And then are you doing a spotlight down onto, onto him?
[48:00] And then what's going on with the, at the back table? How did you get the little thing at the back table? Okay. One second. Sorry. Well- You exact- You guessed it exactly right. That's exactly how we did it.
[48:11] So this is a funny one. Here. Um, because, uh, I, I, I feel like I learn something every production. And what I do now is I prepare a cinematography brief before a project to say like, "Hey, this is what we're shooting.
[48:26] Here's what the boards look like. Here's what the previz looks like. Here's my lighting diagrams, and here's what the look and feel."
[48:32] Everybody was super aligned, but it, the more details that you get into everything, the better. Because we have three main scenes here.
[48:39] We have our traffic scene, we have the ca- uh, the, uh, cafe, and then we have this library. When we got to the library, it was night.
[48:45] And I'm like, "Oh, I-" Um, this is supposed to be daytime of how it's supposed to be boarded.
[48:51] And then we started lighting it, and then we- I had a bunch of lights outside blasting through the hallway that you see in the background here. So if you look at the top right...
[49:00] Not top right of frame, like the edge right of frame- Mm... see that light on the floor? Yeah. Those are big lights outside kinda giving levels to the book- bookshelves and everything like that, as well as the floor.
[49:10] So we had those at 100% blasting through, like beautiful light coming in. And then the, um, uh, one of the guys from the agency's like, "Hey, we were thinking that this was actually supposed to be nighttime."
[49:23] And I'm like, "Oh." \[laughs\] I'm like, "Oopsie."
[49:27] \[laughs\] So that kinda put like a wrench into me, because I already had all these plans, lighting diagrams ready to go, and then I kinda had to rework my mind of actually what this is supposed to look like. Yeah.
[49:37] So then Sophia and I had like a two-minute like reconver- uh, conversation, then w- let alone this is like 2:00 in the morning as well, so we're running on fumes. Uh, and then- Yeah...
[49:45] she's like, "Think Sony, think exactly how we lit that." And I'm like, "100%, let's do it."
[49:51] So, uh, on- in that corner behind the guy pushing that trolley, there is a light mat, and you can actually see the extension cord unfortunately. \[laughs\] Uh, and then that's just pushing through and giving us like a...
[50:04] looks like a light is on, uh, in the background over there. And then on the tables we have these like small little lights and everything like that. Those are from just Amazon that they sourced.
[50:13] And then actually on top of this you can see the kind of the edge of it, but there is a second floor to this, and then it's kind of like a balcony that looks down. Mm. So we had a spotlight rigged up on a 600C.
[50:26] We had this at a very low power. Mm. And then that's giving us our streak on the table, and you can see where it's coming from, because the edge of the shadow on the floor- Mm-hmm... is there as well.
[50:35] So it's very untraditional how we did this, but Sophia was like, "Yeah, I just want a hard line on him, but I want it to feel like nighttime." And I'm like, "Perfect." Mm. "I'll figure it out."
[50:44] And then also on the f- uh, outside of frame right we have like a, a light pushing into the ceiling, and that's kinda pushing this general blue. So I have that set at like 7,000 kelvin.
[50:55] So I like to push blue into my background, so that's just what I like to do, and then light with orange lights to give you that tasteful teal and orange look that we always like to go for.
[51:06] So white balance on, at the camera at what, like 5,000 or 4,400 or something? Uh, I usually like to go 4,400. And then 32 on my, uh, warm sources, which is like tungsten. Yeah.
[51:18] And then maybe 6 or 7,000 on my cooler sources. Okay. Can you talk to how you have a lot of, uh, match cuts, and how you go about achieving that, you know, when going from location to location? Yeah.
[51:36] So, um, this again, pre-production is everything when it comes to big commercial sets.
[51:42] Um, even if you can start implementing this into your smaller commercials or even videography jobs that you wanna kinda bring out into something bigger, is when we actually were doing these like five days of, like heavy pre-production, they already had the storyboards mapped out of exactly what this is going to look like.
[52:02] And then Sophia took those, and then she uses an AI program, and then she takes the location scout photos and puts them in, and it looks like almost shot for shot.
[52:10] Uh, I'll share you a link later, but there's an animatic. An animatic is like a previz, but it's like a storyboard's animated. And it looks exactly like how we shot it.
[52:20] So it was just planning of like, "Hey, these are the exact shots. We're not gonna deviate from it."
[52:24] So when we showed up on set, no one was getting creative of like, "Oh, the camera's gonna do this, the camera's gonna do that." No, this is already set in stone.
[52:32] And then when we were on the location scouts, we prevized a lot of the stuff. So when, uh, you see the match cut between her hand and his hand, we just took pictures on our monitors.
[52:42] I have a small HD monitor, so I just took a picture of that and overlaid it when we went to the new area. So it's not a one-for-one match cut, it's just an action match cut. Yeah.
[52:53] And then Sophia and I were going back and forth and back and forth of like, "Has to be the same focal length, has to be this, has to be that," and then we were looking at references and we're like, "Oh, no it doesn't.
[53:02] We just have to match the action and roughly the same camera angle, and it'll work out." Because if it's, um, too matchy you have to get it perfect, but if it's matchy enough- Yeah...
[53:12] and then like you're just playing on the action and not the focal lengths and lighting, you can get away with a lot. And then can you talk to us about lighting the actual bottle? Yes.
[53:22] That was the one I was gonna talk to you about, the last frame. \[laughs\] Yeah, like lighting the bottle. Oh, the last frame. Because dude, people don't understand how hard it is to light products. It's brutal.
[53:31] It is so different than- Oh. Dude, so I'll, I'll put you guys on game. I know you don't need this- \[laughs\]... but like for the, for the rocks listening.
[53:37] I shot something with one of our good friends who's like product god in Los Angeles. This dude, boy Evan, he just fucking does product all day long.
[53:44] So I'm shooting in his studio, and he had these f- these Lee filters, and they're like a little diffusion paper.
[53:49] And I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Dude, we tried to shoot a can," this was like a year ago, "and I can't get this light to look right on the side of the can. Like, it's just too harsh, you know?"
[53:59] And I'm like, "It's- Yeah... I'm soft. I like have, I'm sh- bouncing it in muslin, but I just cannot get this thing to look perfect." He goes, "Dude, let's go get some Lee filters."
[54:06] And I had to go all around the city to find this very specific, it was like half diffusion from the Lee filter, and you shoot the light through that, and then it really softens it up, and it made it look pretty sick.
[54:15] Oh, yeah. So just tossing it out there for the rocks- So when it comes to-... that might, might be trying to shoot a can or something. Oh, 100%.
[54:21] I don't do product, I stay away from it, 'cause it's a nightmare of reflections and just... You need soft, soft, soft, soft lighting, like magic cloth. Like, a, a bounce source into magic cloth- Mm-hmm...
[54:32] or like your Lee filters that you're talking about. It's just super soft, and you have to have it like as close to the product as possible- Yes. \[laughs\]... so the source looks as big as possible, right?
[54:40] No, it, it's a nightmare. So this, uh, we were rushing, and I, I had like this whole thing set up in terms of how we wanted to do it. So we're swapping between a \[clears throat\]
[54:52] A, uh, Arri, I think it was like a 25 to 80... No, 18 to 80, and then, uh, the Cooke S4s, and then because... Sorry, the Cook- Cooke S8s.
[55:04] And because we were running so behind in the schedule because our first location took a while to do, just because it was just the first location, things take a while usually with that, uh, we had to shoot this on the zoom lens, which I wasn't really a fan of.
[55:17] And then what I did with the lighting is I just brought all my back lights down. As you can see with, like, the con- hard contrast in the back- Mm-hmm...
[55:25] everybody feels, like, super dark, and then just popped out the bottle with that 80Cs as well as that Lightmat, but then went super diffused on the Lightmat by putting a bunch of fabrics in front of it.
[55:37] But that got us maybe 60% there, and then I didn't have enough time to finesse everything. This is a lot of retouching in post with- Mm... our colorist. Like, the stuff that he do- Like, I can show you the, uh...
[55:50] I would love to show you the offline stuff, but, like, he did so much work. Because when we were even looking at it- \[laughs\]... like, I had to reassure client that, like, "Hey- \[laughs\] Yeah... the colorist can, can,
[56:01] can, can do this. Don't worry." Yeah. So he popped the labels in the bottle. He killed a lot of the reflections. Mm.
[56:06] The thing that I got right was all the sparkling in the water, which they really loved, especially the reflections on the, um- Mm... the wood itself. Mm-hmm. Like, they were, like, super stoked about that.
[56:18] They just felt like the level of the bottle was super low, because it's just like if you have a huge back light coming in, it's gonna feel super contrasty, and then you try to lift it, and then it just looks like shit.
[56:30] So I just kinda l- left it with the super contrast, and then I'm like, "Oh, Jason can just lift this up all in post." Mm.
[56:37] 'Cause I've worked with him on, like, probably maybe 30 color sessions right now, and the g- the stuff that guy does is crazy. Damn.
[56:44] And did you know going in that they wanted this as, like, the shot because they wanted the bottles on the, you know, right third of the frame so that they could put the, uh, text on screen at the end? Oh, yeah.
[56:58] We had, like, a, a PPM, which is a pre-production meeting, and we had that at their agency, and then they were very adamant. Like, "Hey, the pack shot is gonna be like this.
[57:06] There's gonna be three, uh, levels of the bottle, of the product. We need to show off all three, and then we need it in the right so we have the whole thing." And usually, that's what a VTR or DIT does.
[57:17] Sorry, VTR does, which is a virtual technician. I don't, I don't exactly remember what it stands for.
[57:22] But basically, that's the guy on set that will do playback for everybody, that will put supers up, that will do everything so the client can feed that.
[57:32] Unfortunately, we didn't have one of those, so we just had to trust that it was enough. \[laughs\] Yeah. We left enough space. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, um- That was, yeah- Thank you for breaking that down.
[57:41] That was really, really cool. Yeah, that was amazing. You could- Of course... stop that screen recording. That was sick, though. Okay. Gun to your head. \[laughs\] Jesus.
[57:50] Five pieces of gear that you can't live without, dude. What are you bringing? You, you got five- Like five pieces of gear? Yeah. Welcome to the new segment called- Welcome to the new segment-... Gun to Your Head...
[57:59] five pieces of gear that you're like- \[laughs\]... "These have just saved my ass. I keep going back to them, and they gotta stay in the, in the gear bag." Okay. So are we talking about, like, accessories?
[58:10] They could be anything. Or are we talking about cameras and lenses? They could be anything. Yeah. Yeah, it could be a camera. You could be like, "This is my favorite focal length.
[58:15] I always find myself coming back to this one." Could be a piece of camera equipment, could be a light, could be a cable. Disregard the camera itself, though. Okay. Okay. Okay.
[58:24] Disregard the camera itself, 'cause everybody's gonna know I'm gonna say Sony FX3. Mm-hmm. So that's a given. I'll give five on top of that. Okay. So my thing that...
[58:33] 'Cause I have, like, uh, the bag from Venice that I bring all the time, but then I have, like, this spare kit bag of just stuff I bring in case it goes wrong.
[58:42] Um, number one thing I would say is I always have a multi-tool on set. Mm. So not just, like, a, a small rig rinky-dink one. I'm talking a, like, a proper one with a knife, pliers, everything possible, wrench.
[58:58] Just a, a good multi-tool will last you very long, especially when it comes to being a cinematographer and just trying to fix things on the fly. Do you have a brand? I feel like that's great.
[59:06] Brand that you recommend for that? Um, uh, I've been using this... I don't have it on me. I've been using this Milwaukee one. Mm. But any brand will do. Leatherman, Swiss, anything.
[59:18] Just a good one that has a bunch of stuff that you would actually use. Um, second piece of gear that I always bring is... This is, like, two lenses that I'm- You could... Yeah. Bring, go ahead and say it...
[59:31] like, it's my Sigma, Sigma 24 to 70. I will live and die by that this is my favorite lens that I've ever used, and it's the generation one. It's just there's a sharpness towards it that I love it.
[59:43] Sophia and I were just in the Dolomites, and we shot an Airbnb spec that's gonna be coming out soon, very soon as well. Sick. Um, and I just love it, and it's just the most versatile thing that I've ever used.
[59:54] So there's some times in a pinch I'll throw it on the Venice. \[laughs\] Okay. Wait. And, um- Hold on, hold on. P- okay, pause. Did you have to go all the way to the Dolomites to do an Airbnb spec? Yeah, of course. No.
[1:00:09] \[laughs\] You were just like, "Let's fucking go up." So, yeah, yeah, just put a pause on that. Was this, like...
[1:00:12] Was this, like, a- No, it's just like- Was this, like, a we're planning a, we're planning a family vacay to, to Italy, and we're gonna be in the Dolomites. We might as well shoot a spec?
[1:00:20] \[laughs\] I wish that we had that much time and money that we could just say, "I wanna shoot a spec in the Dolomites." No, it's not like that. \[laughs\] That is so unrealistic. Do not do that- \[laughs\]...
[1:00:29] if anybody's, like, planning to do a spec and do that. No. We, um... Basically, her, her sister was getting married in Rome. Mm. And then we bought the tickets, like, maybe three months ago.
[1:00:39] So we're four days in Rome, and we're like, "Okay, we're here. Why don't we take a little five-day vacation for ourselves?"
[1:00:45] So we drove up to the Dolomites, and then as s- as we were planning that, when the wedding was coming, Sophia was like, "I wanna shoot a spec." And I'm like- That's not a vacation, but I love it.
[1:00:56] \[laughs\] \[laughs\] So- Dude, now you got me thinking, bro. I've taken... See, I'm taking Chloe to, to... I'm taking her to Australia- You put her to work... in December. \[laughs\] I'm like, "Talent, dude, talent."
[1:01:05] That's free talent. That's expensive talent. Yeah. Yeah. No, but- There it is...
[1:01:08] but the thing is, like, uh, the thing that I lo- absolutely love about Sophia is that she has an idea, and she will go to whatever lengths to get it done, and she'll just get it done, right?
[1:01:18] So she picked out all the Airbnbs. We did a lot, bunch of activities of mountain biking, climbing the, the trails and everything to get these beautiful scenics and shots and everything like that.
[1:01:28] So that's another one I'm stoked to do it out, but it was just like, yeah, we took the trip for ourselves, but also we're like, "This is, this is the only time that we're gonna be here- Yeah...
[1:01:37] in such a beautiful season, so why not shoot something?" And it's so- So yeah, I shot that on a- And it's so fun, you know? Like, that's so fun to get to do a spot like that together out there. That's cool.
[1:01:46] Oh, yeah, no, it's beautiful. The last one we did, we had so much fun doing, so it's something that we try to do every time. Okay, so s- Yeah, yeah... uh, I'm on my second piece of gear is this good suction cup. Ooh.
[1:01:57] I have this one. I don't exactly know the brand, but you can find them by any brand. I think Kupo makes a really good one. It's about a six-inch one that has a baby pin on it, and then I use this for, uh, car rigs.
[1:02:10] I use it to put a camera up on a wall, put it on glass, put it anywhere. It's like an addition to a tripod that's very nice that I use all the time. Um, third piece, oof.
[1:02:28] Uh, my ND and CPL. Mm-hmm. So I use one by, uh, K&F Concept, so it's an ND and CP combined. So a lot of people- That's so nice... are sleeping on that, "Oh, CP doesn't really matter because you can just u- you can...
[1:02:41] It's just only when you're shooting through a window." But it's actually, it, you can really dial in your highlights as well as to even shift the image to how you want it.
[1:02:50] There's a lot of time where I'm just shooting normally. On all my commercials, I always get a Rotopol, which is a CP, and then I'm always, when I'm looking at a shot, I'm just like, "Okay, what does this do?"
[1:03:00] Just rotating it. And then sometimes it'll kick down a bunch of highlights that you were trying to get rid of before. So that's a really good one. Uh, what number am I on? Four. You have two more. Four. Two more.
[1:03:12] That's tough. Or one more. Oh, my friction arm. No, you have one more. You have one more 'cause you said the 24-70. You have one more. This is your last one. Yeah, I said the 24-70.
[1:03:21] Uh, my last one is the friction arm that I just recently picked up, picked up three months ago. I've been using it.
[1:03:25] It's by, uh, Mophie, so M-O-F-A-G-E, and it's a really solid one that I use it for my monitor all the time. Okay, no, no. Can I, can I change one? Yeah, you can rotate. You can rotate. Okay.
[1:03:38] I would change my 24-70, my trusty 24-70, to a good s- uh, seven-inch monitor. So I feel like the biggest thing- Mm...
[1:03:47] is, like, when people are getting serious about cinematography and everything like that, they're like, "Oh, I need a black camera. I need to do this. I need to do that." No, get a good monitor.
[1:03:55] So I have a S- uh, SmallHD Cine 7, and then I just had an Ultra 5 as well, so I kind of swap between those two monitors. Sometimes I'm using two cameras.
[1:04:04] And like a seven-inch monitor that you can actually see, that you can actually get into details, you can use all your tools, you can use your, your scopes and everything like that, those allow you to be a good cinematographer.
[1:04:15] They allow you to be a cinematographer, and it kind of levels you up from being a videographer. I'm with you on that. So that's the first thing I invested in. Yeah. I'm with you on that.
[1:04:22] That was a big purchase, and it's something that we always rent out, Graham. It hurts. It hurts, man. It hurts, 'cause you're like, "Dude, I could buy like a-" It hurts...
[1:04:29] a shitty car for this price of this monitor, and it's all good. Yeah. \[laughs\] Basically. \[laughs\] How is it, how is it working with your significant other at the level that you do? Because it's not like- Uh, we,
[1:04:44] uh- I, I was gonna say, it's- Go ahead... it's, it's... There's one thing to do something similar as your significant other, but you guys are actually working together on, like, the same projects. Yeah.
[1:04:55] So, like, to give you guys even more context, 90% of the work that I do is with, with my fiancée, who's...
[1:05:01] And, and it's absolutely a blessing for me because there's a lot of times where we'll be involved in the entire process, from when she gets a brief and she starts pitching.
[1:05:11] I'm involved in the creative process in terms of picking her brain, working on the technicalities of, like... We'll be sitting in our, in our living room, and she's like, "Okay, we, I gotta figure out this idea."
[1:05:21] Then I'm like, "Okay, how about you just tell me the idea, and I'll type it out, and then we can kind of work on it." So she has the creative freedom to, to do that because I feel like when...
[1:05:31] Like, the question that you asked, there's, like, similar fields who are like this exact same field.
[1:05:35] We're in the exact same field, so there's a lot of understanding of exactly what we're doing, of exactly what she needs, what I need.
[1:05:41] And then when we're on set and we're actually creating something together, it's like one of the most beautiful things that, that you could do.
[1:05:48] Uh, it's funny because it goes opposite ways when people are like, "Oh, you guys are together? Isn't that weird?" And we're like, "No, it's, it's great." So some people love it, and then some people get skeptical.
[1:05:59] They'll go, "Are you guys gonna fight on set," right? \[laughs\] We, we love it. I bet. No, I bet that's so fun too. I mean, you love hanging out together, and it's like, "Now we're getting paid. This is great."
[1:06:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. \[laughs\] This, this is awesome. Yeah, yeah. She... Like, we're best friends. We're partners and partners in life and then also in business, which it's the best thing I could ask for.
[1:06:21] You guys aren't really going down the route, though, of building out a full-on production company, if I'm not mistaken, correct? No. Can you speak to that? Because I think- No, I feel- Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.
[1:06:33] So, like, to give you context, like, I started off solo, you know, then ran a production company, and then recently I'm moving to more freelance because it just makes more sense in terms of what we're doing.
[1:06:44] Uh, you can approach this like two ways. You, you- we- she's a director, I'm a cinematographer, and then we could, oh, we could brand this and make this into a production company. Mm-hmm.
[1:06:55] But I don't want the responsibilities of a production company and what that entails, right? I don't want the responsibilities of an agency, and then I have to start chasing clients.
[1:07:04] I have to start doing all that extra work just to sell a job. What we're good at doing is actually creating that job, creating that work when the job exists. So we want to fit in the middle ground of like...
[1:07:17] 'Cause we've experienced everything, what it, what it takes to run a production company, and we're like, "That just doesn't make sense for us."
[1:07:23] We're in the middle ground where we're really good at i- ideation, taking somebody- somebody's idea and executing and bringing it to real life, and then just all the technical aspects of that.
[1:07:33] So we're in the middle ground where it's just like we're have connections with production companies, with agencies, with producers, with so many people, where they'll just fish us work, rather than going up to that level where we're gonna be competing with everybody else.
[1:07:48] You know what I mean? To run a production company and to bid for jobs just at a not creative level, it just doesn't align for us. We need a whole team to do that. Mm.
[1:07:57] So we kind of had to look at jobs that, that we can do as individuals, that we can bring in a lot of profit as well as just operate as individual businesses. I love that.
[1:08:08] I think, yeah, I think people don't really understand all the bullshit that comes with that. Like, the- So much... insurance that I pay is fucking crazy, dude. It's insane how much insurance is. It blows my mind.
[1:08:20] I'm like, "This is coming out every month? Like, do we have to pay you guys?" Yeah. But it's just what it costs. It just comes with the cost to run a business. It's crazy. Yeah. It's...
[1:08:28] Run a business and run a production company, and then just insurance, the liabilities associated with that, I'd rather somebody else take care of that. I'd rather somebody else find work for me.
[1:08:38] Obviously, I'm still finding my own work, but with all these connections of different production companies, with them not being tied down to one business, I feel it just opens the doors to work on so much more and to actually do so much more output, and just do the job that I'm good at.
[1:08:53] What's been the hardest part for you being a full-time creative? I feel like it's the, uh, it's... A full-time creative should be a full-time business person, a business whatever, right?
[1:09:09] And the, it's always just the influx of work, when it's gonna be busy, when it's not gonna be busy, and actually how to plan for that. It always comes back to financials.
[1:09:18] Like, I know that we're creatives and we're in this business and everything like that, but we're all trying to, uh, feed ourselves, invest into our future, start a family, buy a house, and everything like that, and it's really hard to plan for the future when things are busy and things when they're not busy, right?
[1:09:35] So I feel like that's the biggest thing, because just being a business owner and having so much more onus, I'd love to sit in a, in a 9:00 to 5:00 and know what I'm projected for the next 30 years, but I don't even know what the next month looks like for me, right?
[1:09:49] So that's the, the thrilling part of it, but also the scary part of it. Do you get a lot of joy out of teaching? Because- Oh, yeah...
[1:09:59] it, the reason I bring it up is 'cause you almost went down the route in the aerospace, in the aerospace, um, career that you were going down, you said you were thinking about potentially even being a teacher.
[1:10:11] Do you feel like that is just kind of something that you're naturally drawn to of you've...
[1:10:17] You know, you have your career and you're obviously incredibly talented, but there's a certain fulfillment, I think, that comes from sharing that knowledge that you've learned over the years and helping the next generation.
[1:10:27] Yeah. I think you feel that, uh, hit the nail on the head, but to give you even more context, like, it didn't come out of nowhere.
[1:10:33] Like, when I was in high school, when I started in un- university as well, I was teaching skid- kids school programs. Mm. I was involved in the community aspect.
[1:10:42] There's this Ontario Science Centre that I was a teacher there for as well when I was in high school.
[1:10:47] So that was kind of always engraved into me, and I feel like that's something my parents taught me in terms of passing on knowledge, and then that's just something I enjoyed.
[1:10:54] But when it came to, uh, in my engineering career, when I was doing my master's, which is in mechanical engineering, I was a, a teacher's assistant.
[1:11:03] So I was teaching, um, thermodynamics and heat transfer and stuff like that, stuff I was really interested and passionate about.
[1:11:10] And then when you get something and then you can explain somebody, somebody to it in a term that you understand that they understand as well, I feel like that's something that really clicks with me and is just like, I get so frustrated at the traditional ways of how things are taught.
[1:11:25] Even when I was in engineering school and everything like that, just everything is so outdated, and I feel like that I wanted to apply when it came to filmmaking.
[1:11:34] 'Cause I started that YouTube channel just because I was documenting exactly what I was doing.
[1:11:38] I didn't know how big of effect I had, how big of a community that I would develop by now, even on Instagram, about the teaching stuff that I do as well.
[1:11:47] So the biggest thing for me is, like when I started, there was nobody putting out information that looked like me as well as at that higher level. So I'm like, "Why can't I be that person?
[1:11:58] Why can't I figure out how to do that?" And it's just like a lot of the stuff, even with the breakdown, I just told you exactly what I did. There's a lot more money involved. There's a lot more people. There's...
[1:12:08] But like, hey, from my side, it's the exact same stuff that you guys are doing, but just at larger scale, and you'd approach it the same way.
[1:12:16] It, it, it doesn't matter if it's tungsten, it doesn't matter HMI, Arri, Red, Sony. It's all the same, and I try to lay, lay, level the playing field with people to say like, "Hey, this is accessible. You can do this."
[1:12:29] And there's been so many rewarding experiences that I've had from that where I've met people from other parts of the world that have come to Canada to start their journey.
[1:12:38] Or when I was in Morocco, the first person that we interacted with, he's like, "Hey, I know your full story." Like, and it was the Uber, it was the PA driver that took us from the airport to the hotel.
[1:12:49] So I feel like- That's why I do it, because a lot of people are like, "Okay. Wow, it's accessible. I can do that." And that's the biggest thing I wanna do. I think that your YouTube channel is priceless information.
[1:13:01] Like, that is stuff that takes people, like, a decade to learn, and you've been so kind with just your knowledge and helping people get into it, and I'm sure the messages you get are crazy from people who are like, "Oh, I was not into this field, and now I'm doing, like, commercial spots," which has gotta be incredible.
[1:13:17] But I wanna know, what's a piece of traditional filmmaking advice that you absolutely do not agree with? That's something that maybe was told to you- Ooh...
[1:13:26] uh, that you're like, "That is just not true at all, and I don't think you have to follow that." Oh. Uh, I can start off with one I do agree with. Okay.
[1:13:36] 'Cause the big thing I get a question is, uh, uh, 'cause I kinda have to think on that, is... 'Cause I, I don't know what a lot of traditional stuff is.
[1:13:43] When you ask me like what's traditional, like, film or the things, I never learned traditionally. I learned off of YouTube University. I learned off of being on set and everything like that.
[1:13:53] And the thing that I do agree with is that film school is important. Oh. Not because of what you learn and everything like that.
[1:14:01] I agree that it's important for the people that you meet and the connections that you can make, because it doesn't take a single person to make a movie or a commercial. It takes 10 people, 20, 30, 40, and 50.
[1:14:14] And then to start off, you need those people to do that. So that's where I, I, I ca- it, it's kinda weird coming from my background, because it's like, well, you didn't go to film school. But Sophia did that.
[1:14:24] She went to film school, and like, from, uh...
[1:14:27] She graduated about two years ago, and now she's at the level of directing this, like, the commercial's at this level, and that was because the connections and the fire that she had at the beginning.
[1:14:38] So that's what I observe. Then I'm like, "Oh, that's what's important in film school," and everything like that. But when it comes to traditional stuff, I, I, I don't know. I don't know.
[1:14:47] I can't answer that question, 'cause I didn't learn traditionally. \[laughs\] Me neither, man. I was just wondering if you maybe- \[laughs\] Yeah. \[laughs\] Shit, I was like, "Yeah, give me the camera.
[1:14:57] Let me figure this out." Tri- Yeah, yeah... trial by trial by fire. This has been so- Yeah.
[1:15:02] Yeah, this is- I feel like a big mis- I, I feel like a big misconception here, here's one, is that you don't have to always shoot at your base ISO. As long as it- Oh... looks good, it's fine. There it is.
[1:15:14] \[laughs\] Let 'em know, dude. Get rid of the DeNoise after, man. Just use the- \[laughs\]... use that after. The colorist can work wonders.
[1:15:18] Well, okay, don't crank it past no return, but there's a lot of times where I'll be, like, telling people how to expose stuff, and then they'll be coming at me with the technical aspects of, like, "Oh, you should do this.
[1:15:30] Rate one stop. Do this." And I'm like, "You know why I did this and it looks the way it is? 'Cause it looked good on the monitor. That's it." Nice. \[laughs\] I love that. Zach, this has been such a fun episode. Yeah.
[1:15:41] This has been episode 210 of the 505 podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like, and we'll see you guys all next week. Peace. So I think I figured it out. Okay.
[1:15:52] You must have showed the guy working the door- Uh-huh... a proof of concept spec project of you maybe at another party, and you're like, "Listen, this was me at another party. Let me in."
[1:16:04] That is what I've been trying to tell you guys the whole time. It's a spec work. It's a spec, dog. That's the whole thing. Yeah. And no one seems to understand. I showed him the video of me hitting a crazy move. Yeah.
[1:16:13] Remember the Dougie back in the day? Uh-huh. So I showed him that. Ooh. Yeah, and he was like, "This, this, this'll work, but don't do that here." \[laughs\] And he, and he let me in. That's why we're here.
[1:16:21] 'Cause this is, this is strictly a no Dougie after party. Yeah, yeah. But so that's why I said, "Hey, I won't make it." Proof of concept. Won't have it work, but you could see how I could get the crowd riled up.
[1:16:29] You showed him the Dougie, the jerk. Yeah, the j- dude, you just unlocked a core memory. \[laughs\] I remember watching a YouTube video and being in the mirror trying to learn how to jerk. You were studying how to jerk.
[1:16:40] Yeah, how to jerk, but now we're here, and that is how you become a videographer to a cinematographer. It's all about spec work. He is...
[1:16:45] Dude, Zachary, Zach, I'm gonna call him Zach because he's a good buddy of ours now. He's Mr. Spec. Mr. Spec, dude. Spec's in his middle name. Zach Spec Guy, that's his name. Zach Spec Guy.
[1:16:56] Yeah, he crushes, he crushes filmmaking as a whole. Life? \[laughs\] Life. He's a great dude. Yeah. Honestly, he was super fun to pod with. I think that we had a ton of chemistry. Chemistry's off the charts for this one.
[1:17:07] Yeah, I was feeling that too. \[laughs\] The, dude, the Canadians to the Rocks, it's like a symbiotic relationship. They're so nice. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
[1:17:14] I just feel like every time we talk to any Canadian, I'm like, we get each other. Uh-huh. You know what I mean? And I, I think that's why 30% of the audience is in Canada. Like, there's something about our lingo- Yeah...
[1:17:24] that really just resonates with the brothers in Rocks up north- Mm-hmm... and the sisters up north. The spec stuff has seemed to be a common thread over the last couple of episodes, but it really is so true.
[1:17:36] Yeah, and I, I think back, dude, to when I made my first ever Nike spec. It was dog water. It was cheeks. Yeah. But you have to make those. Same with, we had Danny on. Danny said the same thing.
[1:17:48] You have to go make the thing before someone's gonna trust you to make the thing. Yeah. I also, man- Like, this isn't a trade where, like, you go to plumbing school, or you go to learn to be an electrician. Yeah.
[1:17:59] You come out, you're like, "Oh, I've been doing electrician stuff for the last year or two years of my trade school." Yeah. Filmmaking's not like that, where you can't just, like, you bought your camera.
[1:18:09] Hey, you're ready to, you're ready to make a, a $30,000 commercial. Yeah. Doesn't work like that. Man, you've given some really good advice.
[1:18:16] I think that, you know, I, I believe we asked, I think I asked Zach on this episode, like, how do you get on set? Yeah. If you don't have any
[1:18:27] connections, if you don't live in a big city, and you're like, "I, I don't know how to get on set, 'cause I wanna learn," you gave the advice of hire someone who knows what the fuck they're doing.
[1:18:41] Yeah, that's great advice. Like, if you, if you wanna direct, and you wanna know how a great DP works- And you got the job...
[1:18:48] like, invest in just paying the DP that you wanna work with or learn from their day rate and have it be a paid project f-... for them, but have it be a spec for you, um, and vice versa.
[1:19:02] You could bring on a director, um, or, or a gaffer or whoever it may be, an editor. Like, you d- you can either do it one of two ways.
[1:19:11] You can either, you know, assemble a crew of friends who just wants to make some stuff together- But you gotta have fri- friends... or, sure, you gotta have friends. That's the hard part there.
[1:19:19] Which is h- what do you think is harder, making friends or getting on set? Getting on set. Yeah.
[1:19:26] Get on set is hard, but I think the most practical ways that you can get on a commercial film set, you make friends with the producers- Mm-hmm...
[1:19:34] and you understand and you watch a shit ton of YouTube videos so you know what all the stands are- Yeah... and how to, how to open them up so you don't look like an idiot, okay?
[1:19:41] And you know some of the terms, a couple of the terms people are gonna throw out. You meet people that own a production company like myself- Yeah... and you offer stuff that I would need as help, right?
[1:19:50] You're like, "Hey, I would do BTS and I'm a killer at BTS." Okay, so this was another really good thing that he said. Yeah, that was a great, it was a good one. He was like, "Don't just say I can do whatever."
[1:19:59] Well, 'cause who... Yeah, everyone can fucking do whatever. Yes. Yeah. I think the best way for... What he said, getting on set by shooting BTS is always, you know, always a value.
[1:20:09] One of the first bigger commercials I think I ever got on was a L'Oréal commercial, and I was doing BTS for this, this guy had hired me.
[1:20:17] And I was locked in to what the heck was going on, 'cause I had never seen a bigger commercial set, probably like a, I don't know, half a million dollar budget, maybe a little bit more. Sure.
[1:20:27] But they had like a stage, and they had the whole nine yards. Everything was, you know, was there, big lights, whole nine.
[1:20:33] But the same principles apply to you in your room trying to make your room look nice than- Sure... like a big set, right? Mm-hmm. And everything just gets bigger. The lights way bigger, way more people.
[1:20:45] Instead of having one person help you, there's 16 people helping you, you know? And I remember, this is a great story to tell, Rocks. I was on vacation with my buddy Andrew.
[1:20:56] We're at, um, Amystik, and I met this guy who owns a c- he- or he's like number two at a very big commercial film house that's in New York, and they do all the ads for like Taco Bell, McDonald's. This company's very big.
[1:21:08] And I remember asking him, I'm like, "Man, I'm so nervous to graduate because I don't know how to use like a Red camera."
[1:21:14] And I, I don't even know if like that was the, the camera that these companies were using at the time, but I knew of the brand Red. And so I'm like, "I don't know how to use a Red camera.
[1:21:20] I don't know how I'm gonna do this." I was having this anxiety and he goes, "Dude," he goes, "It's still a fucking camera." Mm-hmm. "It s- has the same four settings, man.
[1:21:28] You're still gonna adjust the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO, and the frame rate, and that's it." Mm-hmm. He said, "You gotta relax, dog. You're gonna..."
[1:21:35] He's like, "If I gave you an IMAX camera, it's still the same four settings." And I was like, "Wow, you're so right." I was so rattled about trying to get...
[1:21:42] Like, think in my head like, "This next level of filmmaking, I'm gonna have to learn this new camera. I don't know how to use the camera. What lens are they gonna use? I don't know how to communicate with the people."
[1:21:48] He goes, "Dude, you're just gonna do the same way like you do your little A6500. It's still four settings."
[1:21:53] And it made me take a big deep breath because I think a lot of people see what Zach's doing, and they're like, "Man, my stuff doesn't look like Zach's," nor should it probably at the level that you're at. Yeah.
[1:22:03] You know, you think like, "Man, I, I don't know if I'm ever gonna be able to get to that," but you just do it in very incremental stages, and slowly but surely you're gonna get to the level that you wanna get to. Yeah.
[1:22:12] By investing in yourself, by, you know, getting on sets and seeing how people roll, by not being on your phone all the time. Yeah.
[1:22:18] If you can get the opportunity to be on a big set like Danny said, it's like those little things are all gonna add up and then you will be at a level where you're like, "Wow, I'm gonna look back on five years ago and I'm gonna giggle at where I was at freaking out about not knowing how to operate a camera."
[1:22:30] What's also interesting is he said the spec that I believe he did for New Balance- Which was sick... he is now getting paid, like that spec got him a paid work. Was it Adidas or Nike? Yes. I think it was Adidas. Adidas?
[1:22:46] And he said it was like in the exact format, like the look felt and looked very similar because they based it off of the spec.
[1:22:54] So not only did he have proof of concept to actually land him the work, but the creative, they actually loved it so much that they wanted to use that as a reference. 100%. Which is sick. Yeah.
[1:23:04] And they're like, "Hey, can we just buy that and we'll run that back?" I've had that happen. It's a really cool feeling. Yeah. They're like, "Can we just buy this, you know, make this thing happen?"
[1:23:11] I think the biggest thing that takes you from Little Rock to Boulder to be a cinematographer is the pre-production. Yeah. It's the plan.
[1:23:20] 'Cause for the longest time we just pull up, and you're not gonna make the coolest stuff when you just pull up. And he said that's the biggest difference between a videographer and a cinematographer.
[1:23:32] Videographer just shows up and captures, and you're still thinking about angles and all that kinda stuff, but there really is no planning that goes into it. And videographers can still chef.
[1:23:42] Like, that's not to say that- Totally... that's like- Yeah... you're not, you're not a, a creative person. Mm-hmm. Like, you're still s- wicked creative, you know? Yeah.
[1:23:49] It's just like a different, it's a totally different ballgame having a team of people that you have to rely on and you're less, you're less, um, you know, camera in hand and more like delegation plus frame.
[1:24:01] And you guys were talking about how waiting is expensive. Oh my God. Which is why pre-production is so important. Waiting is so expensive, and I think especially when you're the one paying everybody. Yeah.
[1:24:13] \[laughs\] When you're the one paying everybody, it's super stressful. You're like, "Why are we not moving?" Yeah. You know?
[1:24:18] What's, what's interesting about what Zach is doing is he's not really trying to build a production company or an agency.
[1:24:25] He just wants to make really cool stuff, and seems like he has formed really strong relationships with a lot of these agencies and production companies where people just come to him.
[1:24:36] They know he's super talented, a pleasure to work with, and they hire him, and he doesn't have to wor- he doesn't have to worry about any of the bullshit that comes with actually running the company.
[1:24:45] Zach's a good dude, and you can tell, and that's, that's why people wanna hang around him, like- Yeah... you know? You wanna be surrounded with people that you can keep calling back, 'cause set days are long.
[1:24:56] And I mean, every time I hire someone, it's an audition I don't, I don't have, I'm not obligated to bring anyone back- Yeah... besides Sharif. That's true. Yeah. \[laughs\] Like we- And if it was up to you?
[1:25:06] I did, it might not even ha- No, I'm kidding. \[laughs\] But seriously, we were literally joking about this the other day, though.
[1:25:11] I'm like, bro, every time you hire someone, it's audition time, and it continues to be audition time- Yeah... because film sets are like sports teams. There's a bazillion other people that are down to do that other job.
[1:25:22] Mm-hmm. So if you're not a vibe and you're not a- Yeah... cool, kind person, and you're not good at what you do, there's someone else, there's 100 other people that are down to, you know, to come on and do the thing.
[1:25:32] Yeah. Something that... Oh, hold on. Pause on set. \[laughs\] Okay. Okay. \[laughs\] Ah, dude. I don't think he got anything.
[1:25:48] \[laughs\] Just wanted to be on camera. Oh, dude, shout out my dad. Okay. What did he say? Something- Land this plane, dude Here we go. Dude, I'll land it. Come on, land it. Land this plane for me, dog.
[1:26:02] Something we did on this episode that we hadn't done in a very long time- Yes... was actually breaking down a spot, which if you're an OG Rock, you know we've done it a handful of times.
[1:26:13] And whenever we bust out the screen recording, pen and paper, that stuff you guys love, and I thought it was really cool to see, see the sh- the, the shoot that he did for Awkwafina in Morocco.
[1:26:27] Also- Oh, let's roast some work again. Yeah, yeah, we should roast some work, but hearing \[laughs\] hearing how he's like, "I would not trust bringing out my camera.
[1:26:40] I'm renting all, all of it out there, but they work different out there." You know, it's like- That was so funny... we hope, like it should be here in the morning. It should be here in the morning was rich, dude.
[1:26:48] They're like, yeah, he's like- Y-... the whole lighting package is, like, it's all gone right now. Are you trying out new phrases? What? New, new words? What did I just use? What was the word? Rich.
[1:26:57] I, I've been- Did you just try to slip that in? I've been using that one. People have been liking that one. \[laughs\] That's rich. You know what I mean? Try that. Try it next time.
[1:27:03] That's the first time I've heard you say that. No, I've been using it. People have been liking that. Rich? Yeah. Like, that's rich. Where'd you learn that one from? Twitter. \[laughs\] Oh, man.
[1:27:13] I saw this young guy use it on Twitter, man. I said, that's good. Dude, Fig thought he was just gonna drop a new word and just- I think the Rocks are gonna adopt it. Okay. Yeah. Dude, that was rich. Anyways, yeah, dude,
[1:27:25] crazy. I... Also, have you been to Morocco? No, but it looks cool. Yeah, I'd love to go. Where is Morocco? I think I know exactly where it's at. I think it's in Africa. I think so too. I think it is. Let me see.
[1:27:43] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, in the Maghreb, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, region of North Africa. I was right. Mm-hmm. Bang, right on the top. Yep. Oh, wow, it's a big country. It is right next to Algeria
[1:27:57] and right above the Western Sahara- Yeah... and below Spain and Portugal. Wow, dude, we're just getting cultured today. We're learning geography. It's incredible, but it was really cool.
[1:28:06] Out of the country shoot has gotta be nerve-wracking like that, especially when you, like, new crew. Mm-hmm.
[1:28:11] The only, I believe the only person that was on the crew that he knew was his fiancée, Sophia, who's the director. Ye- yes. Yeah. Which is ni- nice to be able to be like, "Okay, you and me are coming in here.
[1:28:21] We're gonna do the thing together," and not have to just pull up and be like, "I don't know anyone on the set."
[1:28:26] Also crazy that one of the scenes that they shot, he thought it was daytime, but it was nighttime, or it was supposed to look like daytime or it was nighttime or something like that, or it was- Yeah, they had to hurry.
[1:28:37] They had to call it, call it quick, change this up. And he goes, "Sophia," like, they pulled a three-minute meeting, it's like, "What the fuck do we do here?" Yeah. \[laughs\] He's like, "We gotta figure this out."
[1:28:47] And then it's also very interesting too how there were certain things that he pointed out that I would have not noticed or thought of at all because there were certain things with, like, the lightings or the lighting.
[1:29:03] In the café shot,
[1:29:05] I didn't even notice the two lighting, the two lights in the back, and they, he's like, "They look too much like lights" or, um, he goes, "We had light pouring in in the opening shot from the left side, but it didn't really make sense 'cause if you look in the back, the sun's actually on the right side."
[1:29:21] I go, "Bro," and he said it too, in commercial world, it does not matter. It- Just make it look sick... you just gotta make it look cool. Make it look great. Mm-hmm. Make it look cool. Yeah. It was fun, though.
[1:29:30] I loved getting to break it down and hear about the lights and the color temperature and why he was at this white balance to give it that kinda teal and orange vibe. It was, uh, it was a fun episode.
[1:29:40] I will also say, I think if you guys, uh, have never watched any of Zach's videos, he really does have a special talent for teaching. He's an educator.
[1:29:51] So go check out his YouTube channel because the way that he breaks down videos that he's made, whether it's spec project or paid work, is some of the best on YouTube, and I think that if you guys are trying to take the leap up into the, you know, filmmaking, uh, high-end commercial work, he's one of the best people you can learn on or learn from on YouTube.
[1:30:14] I agree completely. This was 10 out of 10 episode. Let us know if you guys want us to do more episodes like this, and I think we need to do another video roasting people's work 'cause that shit is fun.
[1:30:25] Yeah, we're due, I think we're due for a Q&A and roasting people's work. And one, and one of those, dude. One of those.
[1:30:29] But please let us know if you guys have been liking the more creative, um, the creative stuff because it has been, it has been so fun for us- Yeah... to, to dive back into the space. Dude, we're so back.
[1:30:38] Just a head first dive back into the space, man. Nice, dude. Yeah. Uh, I'm, I'm just looking at my photos to see what else I've been up to. Oh. What? Okay, I'll tell you something. Let me see what else I've been up to.
[1:30:52] So I got a new Jeep. I had a 2024 Jeep Wrangler. I got literally the same exact car, 2026 model, because I leased it, so I leased another one. But they kind of-
[1:31:09] I, I, I'm having some regrets, I think Why? Which is not good because three years is a long time to have regrets. I like the car. The only thing is the hybrid, it's not hybrid- Mm...
[1:31:22] 'cause they discontinued it 'cause it was having trouble. Oh, that's not good. I think I should've gotten something with better gas mileage- Mm... 'cause it only gets, like, 20 miles- That's-...
[1:31:34] like, 18 miles to the gallon. That's not sick. So not sick, and gas is really expensive right now. And then a small thing that I didn't realize it didn't come with, just a small thing. Small thing, tell me.
[1:31:47] You know how on some cars you just have to have the key in the pocket? Yes, and then you can- And you can, like, double open the door and it opens it? Yes. This car doesn't have that, and the 2024 model does.
[1:31:58] That's w- So I feel like I got- Why are we regressing?... a newer model, but shittier car. Why are we regressing? We gotta call Jeep, man. Dude, and I... Here's the thing. I test drove- Yeah... the Kia Sportage.
[1:32:10] It was the only other car I t- no, sorry. I test drove a Kia Sportage and I test drove a Bronco. I was under the impression that the Bronco was gonna be slightly smoother of a ride than the Jeep. And it wasn't? It's not.
[1:32:24] So I said, "Okay, forget the Bronco," especially 'cause it's slightly more expensive than the Jeep. The Kia Sportage would've been $100 cheaper a month to lease than the Jeep. I just couldn't get myself to get a Kia.
[1:32:37] Yeah, just some- something about the Kia- Something about it... just doesn't yell, doesn't yell that it's your car. But it drove really nice, and the inside's really nice.
[1:32:48] Slightly smaller of a car, but man, I gotta be honest with you guys. It... The Jeep is cool. It r- it really is. Mm-hmm. But man, part of me is just having slight regret. I'm still rocking the Tesla Grip truck, and
[1:33:03] I really like not paying for gas. I l- Yeah... but I beat the shit out of that car, and someone also hit me and didn't leave a note, and it was weeks. Recently? Nah, this was- Oh...
[1:33:12] like, probably five months ago, but I can't do without the car for the period of... Like, I... You need the car. Bro. So this... See, dude, they gotta make this easier.
[1:33:22] They should f- be required to give you a loaner vehicle- Yes... within a year, I think. Is that crazy to say? Because here's the thing, Tesla's insurance sucks. Worst insurance- Mm... on the market. It's cheaper, though.
[1:33:34] See, I don't pay that much for insurance. But see, this is where they get your ass. Okay. They're like, "Oh, okay, you need to put in the car. You can get 45 bucks a day for a car." What car to rent? I know.
[1:33:43] I know, dude. What car to rent is $45? It's such, it's such BS. It's such BS. Bro, so then I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna have to get the car fixed.
[1:33:48] I'ma pay $1,000 deductible, and then I'm gonna pay you 1,000 bucks for this fucking car to- Yes... for this bullshit rental car, for a piece of shit rental car?
[1:33:56] Dude, if something happens to your car, it is the most- I'm just like, bro, I'm just eating it... it's the most inconvenient- No, no, that's what I'm saying... thing ever I'm eating, I'm, I'm just look- Yeah...
[1:34:01] every time I go to the passenger side, I see- Yeah... this moron that's hit my car, and I'm like- Mm. I'll just wear it. I'm like, this is... I'm just gonna wear this. Yeah. But this is ridiculous. Yeah.
[1:34:10] It's just unreal. Also, on the... T- Tesla's a piece of shit car. \[laughs\] Genuinely, it's a piece of shit car. Can you believe Elon's a trillionaire? No, it's...
[1:34:17] The car is a piece of shit, but I will say, what I do like about it, one, the zip. The thing, the thing is fast. The car itself is a piece of shit. It's falling apart. My steering wheel is peeling off. Mm.
[1:34:28] It's just peeling off. The dri- or the p- How long have you had the car? Not even a year, or a little over a year, I think. A little over a year, which- Wait, what? No, I've had it for more than that.
[1:34:37] I've had it for two years 'cause I was still at the Lakers. Did you... Wait, hold on, hold on. Nah, I was still at the Lakers when I got it, so two years. I've had it for two years.
[1:34:43] This was, like, the first ever version you got, or you had one and then you upgraded? Had o- I had the Model 3, and then I upgraded to the Y- Okay... 'cause they had that promotion, 0%, 0.9% APR or something.
[1:34:53] So anyways, I upgraded to that one. Sorry, my headphones are coming in and out. I upgraded that one, and then my passenger side window just one day stopped working. Mm. So I have to reach over.
[1:35:05] I mean, this thing is falling apart. Mm-hmm. It's just unreal. But that's a, it's a, it's a tech car, not a car car. I see. You know what I'm saying? Like, the, the computer situation vibe, like, it's great.
[1:35:16] That's good stuff. But the actual car itself is just falling apart. Like, everything... I'm just noticing little things just keep messing up. The paint, terrible paint. You just touch the paint, it scratches. Yeah.
[1:35:27] It's horrible. It's awful. Man, it's tough, dude. It's, it's hard out here, man, to get a good car. I think... You know what I think I wanna do? I think I want a truck. I genuinely- Bro, I looked into.
[1:35:36] I- I think I might. Dude, I might trade this in in two years, go with, like, a Ford Raptor. S- oh. Something big. I talked to this guy in my building. He has a Ford Raptor.
[1:35:44] I go, "Hey, how terrible is this drive that around LA?" He goes, "I love it. It's great." He goes, "Not that big of a problem for me." He goes, "I don't really park on the street that much." I'm like, "You know what?
[1:35:53] I really don't park on the street that much either." Dude, \[laughs\] when I went to Ford, 'cause I test drove the Broncos- Oh, y- oh, okay. They, they trying to get you to buy a truck?
[1:36:00] Well, I asked him, I was like, "What's the deal with the truck?" I was like, "What could I get for a comparable lease price?" Okay. And he showed me the bitchiest truck. \[laughs\] So small. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[1:36:10] I was like, the bed truck's, like, this big. Well, that's so, that's why I was thinking about a truck, 'cause I'm always transporting stuff. So I'm like- Uh-huh... that could be in an, in my cards. Yeah.
[1:36:18] If I got a little truck, then I could tr- What does a Ford Raptor go for? I think you can get one for, like, 75 or something. Okay. I think. I could be totally wrong. Do you like... This is funny.
[1:36:31] Do you like owning a car versus leasing? Okay, now cars, let's get this straight. Cars are a liability, not an asset, but in this weird thing in my head, right, when I pay off the car- Yeah...
[1:36:42] it's in some form some sort of an asset 'cause then I can, let's say- 'Cause it doesn't go to zero... that's what I'm saying. Exactly. So, like, I am aware that if you asked a financial person- Yes...
[1:36:51] they'd go, "This is a liability, not an asset." I get that. But by the time I'm done in three or four years paying it off- Yeah...
[1:36:56] it is an asset to me 'cause I'm like, "Okay, I have $25,000 of this metal thing sitting here that I can trade in," right? Yeah.
[1:37:01] So when I sold my, like, when I sell my Tesla in a year, 'cause I'm not gonna keep it probably, I'll probably get, like, 25,000 for it- Mm-hmm... or 20K, let's call it.
[1:37:10] So, like, I'll have that to put down towards my new car, but I hate having a car payment. It drives me nuts.
[1:37:17] I hate having a car payment So I'm like, do I just keep the Tesla for a few more years, beat it to shit- Interesting... have, like, 10,000 or something or whatever, I don't know- Mm-hmm...
[1:37:26] whatever it'll be worth at that time, and then go and get a car? You know what I'm saying? See, I always... The lease thing makes sense to me, 'cause then they take care of all your problems. Yes.
[1:37:38] We should, dude, the Rocks need to weigh in on this debate. We, we talked about this. So I've, I've leased a car since I first got a car. I'm a little salty that... I'm a little salty though that I didn't wanna go drop
[1:37:55] 3,500 bucks to, like, put down l- Like, my lease was up. I had to get a new car. See, that doesn't...
[1:38:01] That's the, that's, that's where they get ya, is if they just were saying, "Oh, it's 500 bucks a month or 400 bucks," whatever that thing is, that makes sense to me.
[1:38:09] It's the fact that you pay them, but that's the only way they make money. But technically, to lease a car you don't actually have to put any money down. Yeah, but then... But- But up the monthly. Yeah.
[1:38:18] But to buy a car, the monthly's always more expensive. Yes. See, that's annoying. 'Cause you pay what, like, 800 bucks a month? I pay a shit ton for that car. I think it's that...
[1:38:28] And I put- Like, my monthly- I think I put 20% down, and it's still, like- Mm-hmm... 750 bucks or something a month- My-... which is ridiculous... my monthly for the Jeep is 500 even, flat.
[1:38:38] So I put $3,500 down, and it's $500 a month. If I was to have gone and bought the Jeep- Okay... I, I still probably would have had to put the same amount down or maybe even a little bit more- Maybe like 700 bucks...
[1:38:49] but it would've been, like, a seven or $800 a month thing. Bro, bro. And I'm like, and I'm like, part of me thinks about you, where it's you almost... You, you take the L- Yes...
[1:39:00] on, like, the first time you buy it- Mm-hmm... but then if you- But see, now exactly, now I'm gonna... I, I, like, own these car- Yeah... like, I've always owned my fir- I owned my first car, so it's like, okay.
[1:39:08] Then I had, I think when I sold it, 10 grand or something- Sure... to put towards the Tesla, and then I put a little bit more cash down. Yeah. But I don't know. Owning a car sucks. It sucks.
[1:39:18] And but now I'm also in the, in the mindset of in three years I know I'll- You get a new car... get a new car. See, that's nice. That's nice to know. So I think I'm Team Lease, honestly. You're Team Lease?
[1:39:30] I'm curious what the Rocks are. Team Lease, Team Buy. I'm c- the best thing to do, you just need to be rich. Buy it outright. That's what you gotta do. That's- You think? Yes. When you're done.
[1:39:40] Well, yeah, being, being rich is definitely better. But no, but, but I, but I think, I think this is the play. I don't think you ever buy a new car. Sure.
[1:39:45] I think you get a car that's one year certified pre-owned- Uh-huh... so you get the warranty with the dealership. Uh-huh. 'Cause these guys are trying to fuck you. All the, all the car guys- Yeah... they suck, man. Yeah.
[1:39:56] They're trying to get your ass. You know what I'm saying? I forgot to share this, and I'm- If you're a car guy, we still love you- Dude... but I think they're trying to get you, man. I, I, um- Huh?
[1:40:05] Dude, I felt like a celebrity 'cause I got recognized at the Ford dealership. No, you didn't. I swear, but I'm blanking on his name. For, for Po- for the pod? Yeah, for the pod. No way. Yeah.
[1:40:16] One of the Rocks works for Ford? Yes, and I'm- Okay, but I bet he's a good guy. The rest of them, man, they're trying to get you. Yeah, he was, he was dope. I- That's actually so sick...
[1:40:23] oh, man, I, I'm blanking on his name. Dude, he definitely, he's a part-time creative. He's gonna quit. We can't, we can't, maybe we can't say his name 'cause he's gonna quit his job. He's gonna be full-time creative.
[1:40:29] Dude, okay, so I was beating myself up 'cause I wanted to... I shoulda got his number. Honestly, I might go back- You should... and go, "Yo," 'cause he was like, "I was trying to do the-" He sale, he sells? Yeah. Uh...
[1:40:41] Maybe. He's in marketing. I think he's, like, trying to get to the sales. Okay.
[1:40:45] I don't know, but he was telling me how he used to do, like, the freelance stuff, and he still kinda does it, but he w- he got a, a job at Ford. The move is to get a year... See, that's the dude.
[1:40:56] You drive it off the lot, five grand gone. It's, I'm never buying a new car again. Sure. I'm gonna go one year used- Unless it's just, like, really not making a dent. Yeah, unless it's just d- no dents. Yeah.
[1:41:05] Right then, then it's, then it's fine. Then I'll go buy it in cash and be done with it. Which we're close. That's what, that's what we need to get to. But not, we're not there yet. I need, I need to get there. Yeah.
[1:41:12] I need to get there, but I think the move is one year fucking- Yeah... thing. That's the move. Another thing that is nice and cool about the lease is you're always leasing the new, the newest year.
[1:41:22] See, that's a nice thing. Yeah. That is a nice thing. Hmm. This is a 10-minute side tangent debate, but I think- Yeah, but we're- You got... We're, we're in the after party... we're a few drinks deep.
[1:41:31] Yeah, that's, this is the- You know we're at the after party. We're dancing. We're BS'ing. We're jerking. \[laughs\] What are we? We're dug in? Dug in, dude. Doing the dug...
[1:41:39] Yeah, but that is, uh, that's where I stand with that. Anything else you wanna talk about on t- today's after party?
[1:41:47] \[drumbeat\] I went back to the corded headphones 'cause I kept losing my AirPods, and I'm done giving Apple money. Drives me nuts. Oh, I was wondering why you did that.
[1:41:55] I thought you didn't wanna get- When we went to New York, I left them at that hotel, and it was- Oh... that hotel sucked. Never stay at the Holiday Inn in the, near the airport. That hotel sucked horrible.
[1:42:05] Oh, when we got stuck in the storm? Yes, I left, I left them there, and I literally- Dude, that was a, that was a trip... I'm just done giving Apple money for bullshit. I thought you went- Apple's... Yeah...
[1:42:13] wait, hold on. I thought you went to the corded thing because- The ear, the ear EMF shit?... all the, all the football players. Yeah. The... No, I mean, yes.
[1:42:20] I think that, not supposed to have the phone near my pants area either, I heard. Supposed to be back pocket. I heard a lot of EMF shit going on with these phones.
[1:42:28] You're not supposed to have this thing near where you sleep either. There's a lot of studies that are coming out. Mm-hmm. I'm a sheep, dude. I'm just listening to whatever Huberman says, but- Yeah...
[1:42:34] that's what I've heard, and the EMF thing in the ear is supposed to be bad. I always listen to my shit at full, like, full blast as well. I don't think you gotta worry about the phone being near the- I swear to God-...
[1:42:44] the- They, they... No, no, they did s- they've done studies on- No, but you f- you particularly. \[laughs\] I think you're good, dude. Seriously. I think you're fucked either way. \[laughs\] Dude, unreal.
[1:42:53] Yeah, it's, uh, it's so interesting though because I've been ripping the corded headphones. I like it more. The only thing, dude, only thing- Dude, you don't gotta- Let me tell you something... this is a safe space.
[1:43:02] You gotta l- you don't gotta lie... let me tell you something about these corded headphones, okay? My cabinets at home have this little thing that comes out, like a little handle, okay?
[1:43:12] \[laughs\] I'll be walking around if I'm not wearing a shirt, and I'll turn to the left- And if it's caught... and it, I mean, just yanks- Yeah, yeah, yeah \[laughs\]... out of your ear, and it's so humbling. I'm like, "Oh."
[1:43:21] Oh, that hurts. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the only p- drawback that I didn't have that issue with the other ones before. On the topic of headphones, and I'm curious to hear The Rock's opinion on this. Okay.
[1:43:33] So I went to the gym today. Okay. And you weren't there, which is interesting because we were supposed to go together. I was tired, man. But I lost my train of thought. Finders- No, I'm just kidding...
[1:43:43] keepers headphones. So I had, uh, I worked out with Apple Air- Air Max, uh, AirPod Max. Those are a piece of shit. The worst- The over-the-ear ones... worst product they've ever made. Those things are mid.
[1:43:54] They hurt, they hurt your ears. They're, they're, uh- They're n- dude, they're seriously- They're not great. But I, so I don't- Bad... I don't think- Bad product...
[1:44:01] I don't think working out with, like, these kinds of headphones are the move. Too sweaty. Well, they're just... They fall, they, they fall off- Yeah, I agree... on certain exercises. I agree.
[1:44:10] The, the sound quality in the Sony MX5s- Yeah... MX4s is the best quality- Yeah... headphone. But the, these are also very comfortable to wear for an extended period of time. I love wearing these on flights. Yes.
[1:44:21] But I don't like it if you have the neck pillow. See, that's why I've been going back to the corded ones. Yeah. But if you have a baby crying next to you, you gotta bust these out, so I bring them for safety. Mm-hmm.
[1:44:29] You know what I mean? It's a, it's a give and take. It's a push and it's a pull, but I'll tell you what- And so is life...
[1:44:35] so is life, and the corded headphones are good for the gym as long as you put them under your shirt. If you don't put them under your shirt, bad news, getting caught on stuff.
[1:44:44] See, I still think AirPods are best for the gym. I just, you know what? I'm done giving... I, I was on... This was AirPods number four in my phone. I'm done giving them money. I can't. Yeah. I just cannot do it.
[1:44:55] Dude, we weren't recording audio. I know you're lying. Ah, gotcha. Anyways. \[laughs\] Yeah, that's, uh, that's where we end this one.
[1:45:02] Also, ay yo, if you're into the, into filmmaking, wanna be level up as a videographer, you should check out our new Instagram.
[1:45:07] It's called the Dream Client Accelerator, and it's also just happens to be the name of our cohort that we do a couple times a year.
[1:45:12] But you should go check it out 'cause we're giving out some banger tips every single week. Yeah. And we'll link it down below. All right. All right, see you guys all next week. Peace.

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