Operator Peter Robertson

Dave C: On today's podcast, we'll talk about starting out as a painter, turning problems into opportunities, atonement, bohemian rhapsody, and of course, creating one of the most iconic Steadicam shots ever because the director doesn't have enough time. Just a little bit of business before we start. There may be a curse word here or there in this episode, so please listen responsibly. As always, our website, theop.io is up and chock full of tips, tricks, and gooey operator goodness. Make sure to check out the breakdown where the best operators in the biz explain shots they have done, the musings where we discuss everything from quick tips to larger concepts of storytelling, the answers, the images, and so much more. I may or I may not take a break or two during this episode, but I promise that none of them will be longer than 22 seconds. Finally, if you are enjoying the podcast, please follow us, write a review, share us with your parents, and talk us up around the water cooler with your friends. So grab a beverage, sit back, and enjoy the op. Thanks for ⁓ ⁓ at the CVP Creator Hub on Charlotte Street in London because it sounds better than the corner shop in Crouch End. The ACO is the Association of Camera Operators, which is an amazing organization over here that ⁓ focuses solely on the craft of camera operating and highlights the great work that people are doing as camera operators. The ACO helped me get in here by connecting me with these folks. And CVP are specialist suppliers of professional film and television production technology. And they have this amazing creator hub here in Charlotte Street, ⁓ which ⁓ has a area downstairs that we're in, which is used for testing. And you can check out their gear and test it. It's really incredible. And I can't thank them enough for allowing me to be here. I'm really excited today to be here with an amazing operator, someone who I just met and I've seen his work forever, Mr. Pete Robertson. ⁓ A couple of his credits, but by no means all of them. ⁓ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. ⁓ Bond's number 20 Die Another Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Bohemian Rhapsody, Wonka, Mary Poppins Returns, Hot Fuzz, In Bruges, The Gentleman, Atonement, which he did a really small steady cam shot that nobody saw on, Anna Karenina, Sereno. He just recently won the 2026, as a matter of fact, I think last week, the 2026 BSC Operators Award for Mussolini Son of the Century, 2013 BSC Operator Award for the feature Anna Karenina. In 2013, the SOC gave him the historic Operators Award for a little shot that he did in atonement that I'm sure we'll talk about. And he's been nominated for like six or 10 other things rightfully. So he's a really incredible operator and I'm excited to talk to him. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Dave. Well, that's quite a... An introduction really to live up to. Is it overwhelming to hear all that? I can, I hope I can live up to the intro. I suspect so. So tell me, how'd you get into operating? Like how'd you get into the film industry? Well, it's quite ⁓ coincidental really that we're sitting here in one of my old stomping grounds in London where basically I went to college ⁓ just around the corner. I did a fine art degree. Okay. What school? at the Slade School of Fine Arts, which is the University College London. So it's just around the corner. Many of my early sort of experiences of life in London were around this area. Did you go there for film? mean, did they? No, was it was a painting degree. I know what I did. Yeah. So I left school with a scholarship to go to the the Slade and ⁓ at school, I really my subjects. I mean, the only things I was good at was was art and sport, ⁓ which seemed like an odd combination at the time, but subsequently turned out to be, I think, the perfect training for a camera operator. Yeah, there's no question about that. Was sport being, I'm a football. Yeah, I did. I did football rugby, ⁓ swimming. I always have been. grew up on the northeast coast, which is sort of rugged and windy and I was always sort of as a kid in the sea and or messing around by the ocean and what have you so and still to this day I'm a keen windsurfer and spend a lot of time in the in the ocean when I'm not working so ⁓ everything that I've kind of done has worked out to be almost complimentary I mean it's quite haphazard but Did you grow up watching movies? Like, were you a movie buff or like? No, I really grew up. I mean, I was really interested in art from an early age, you know, looking at pictures. I mean, it wasn't high art. It was cartoons, which I still still do to this day. It was an illustrator. ⁓ I've done some stuff for the Mark Milsom Foundation over here, which has a number of my My cartoons as well. So the camera operator thing doesn't work out you have a backup Well, hopefully if people like the cartoons, of course, yes Yeah, but I just it's a I just consider a doodling and a form of relaxation Really more than anything else which I think's important But there's something interesting to me about that because like you're essentially drawing a frame and drawing a drawing You know drawing a clue even though you may not have thought about it drawing a close-up drawing a wide shot Whatever, and I'm sure there's a lot that you you pull from that ⁓ absolutely. mean, I look back now and this is all really in hindsight because as a young person, I don't think I designed this sort of career route, but it's the way it's worked out is I think I've always naturally sort of found an affinity with ways of seeing and looking. And it's what got me into cameras eventually when I was at college. But I think the, the, the painting sort of degree that I did, it told me or taught me basically that ⁓ looking is not seeing and looking, you can look at something without seeing anything. If that makes sense. Can you expand on that more? Yeah, if you look at a painting, ⁓ I would just, I wouldn't necessarily see everything that was going on inside it. So doing that kind of degree and talking to the tutors and Also being let loose on London and being every day being able to go to all the great galleries that are here in London. I started to be able to see things in painting. I saw composition, I saw perspective, I saw a meaning of figures. If you put a figure in a frame in the picture space, you put it in a certain area, it has a meaning. So somebody is... diminished in a frame and someone is enlarged, you give power to one figure over another. So all those kind of things I learnt really and that's what I mean about you can look at something. I sometimes watch people going around the galleries and there's crowds of people and they'll walk past the masterpiece and they'll give it two seconds. and you go, well, they're not seeing anything there. They're just looking. They're just looking. Yeah. That's brilliant. I love that. That makes sense. No, that makes perfect sense. And it's so much more than what I thought it might be. That's fantastic. as an operator, you're thinking in that mode as you're setting up frames. I think so, definitely, yes. I mean, obviously, that you're working as an operator, you're working in collaboration. You're ⁓ working alone and creating your own. you know, compositions, you're working to the direction of the director and the DOP, but you know, hopefully, ideally it's a collaboration. So that's what you can bring, I think, to the table when you're a camera operator. Do you think in terms of, I mean, do you think about the compositions in classic pieces of art often when you're composing frames, or do you think it's just sort of in the back of your mind? I mean, is that... I think it's just a building block. It's a building block. It's in the back of the mind. But there's certain, obviously, not just paintings, but all sorts of visual arts. Photography is very important. And you can go and you can look at a photography exhibition that's very, say, cinematic. The way that people are composed in the frame. ⁓ And I can't think of any ⁓ direct examples. But I think it all seeps in. I was just yesterday. Do know Sean Bobbitt? Yeah, yeah, very well. Sean is a good friend of mine. We've worked together. Not enough because there couldn't be enough. ⁓ and we went to the Tate Modern yesterday, which I've never been to. And as you're walking around, we were talking about the fact that neither of us go to museums anywhere near the amount that we should just because good or bad or whatever, it just makes you start to think about composition and why the artist did something and whatever. Yeah, it's really quite amazing. And I tell I tell young people who ask me, I was just teaching in Amsterdam the other day and someone said, yeah, You know what you're talking about is great and because I give a hands-on thing about ⁓ You know about about operating and framing and whatnot and they said but I'm not on set all the time, right? So how do I and I said look go down to the Reichs Museum and look at classic paintings and just ask yourself Yeah, why did they put Jesus there and why does the wise light there and why is it? What if it was wider? What if it was tighter exactly and also what's fascinating and a lot of paintings as things like eye lines? Yeah You see subjects and you kind of go, ⁓ why is he looking or she looking off to the left or the right? What's out there? What they're looking at? That's just not a haphazard thing that has deep, you know, that's there's a, an artist that spent maybe years putting that picture together. So it's very considered. So ⁓ everything in the frame has that meaning. So if you, if you look at, don't know, saw recently the Lucian Freud exhibition. No. What's at the Portrait Gallery and he has some fascinating ⁓ in his paintings. They're not just paintings of people, you know, in natural positions or nudes or, you know, sort of ⁓ groups of people or showing relationships or whatever. But they're also ⁓ the eye lines. They look out to the people either look out at you directly as the viewer, which is, guess would be looking at camera, which is almost alarming. Sometimes it's alarming, you know, so they stare with that kind of they're looking at you or they're looking off. They're looking down. They're looking around and you say, well, where, where are they looking? Maybe they're not looking anywhere. Maybe they're caught in a moment of shyness or not wanting to. to be observed or whatever. So all of those sort of very simple things you write, you you can go ⁓ offset not working, you don't have a camera in your hands, you can go look at these things and that will inform your work when you go back on set. Well, and also I don't know if you find this sometimes, but sometimes when I'm searching for a position for the camera or Steadicam wise, you know, where you go and you land a shot or whatever. there's just a place where it wants to go. And you put it, you sort of boom up, boom down, come left, come right. And then you just sort of go, that's it. And I can't always, sometimes I can define what it is. Like I see the tree in the background, you know, whatever. But sometimes I think, at least for me, I don't know if you have this, but I don't know, but it just feels right. And it feels like it's telling the story. I think. I always think that that's all that stuff that's built up over the years of looking at paintings and looking at great films and photographs. ⁓ this has some sort of connection to that. So it feels it feels correct almost if that's the right word. Yeah, I know. I completely agree. It's the sort of building blocks of your work really that you need to. sort of cement together so that when you do, because as an operator, often your work is in the moment. We do all the pre-planning, we do all of the equipment playing, we do all of that, but ultimately what it comes down to is when they say turnover, is your focus on what you're shooting. and where the camera should be and at what time it should be at certain places, all the timing. And ⁓ you don't think consciously at that moment. You're just sort of bringing all of your experience to bear ⁓ on that moment. It's a way that you can develop your trade outside the With all these soft skills that you can do like that? Absolutely. It's funny because you said the word turnover. and my heart sort of warms when you say that and I miss that. Sorry, it's a bit old school. But I miss that because it used to be like there was that thing of like, all right, know, roll sound and everybody got kind of quiet and then you'd literally turn over, you'd turn it on, the business, you feel it next to you. Yeah. It was just such a great like something important is happening and I miss that. Yeah. It's just not, it's not the... It's not the same. Do you sometimes go back and do film occasionally? Well, yeah, we've just recently finished a project that was partly on film, partly on digital. It's exciting, right? Yeah. I mean, it has a kind of it has a poignancy when they say turnover, because everyone is focusing at the same thing. important is happening that is lost with digital, unfortunately. And also for an operator, I love looking down an eyepiece. Yeah. And with film, you kind of almost have to. ⁓ But even I find if if I'm looking at an eyepiece with digital, sure, I'm looking at an eyepiece and it closes out the world and all those great things, but I'm not looking through the lens. I'm still just looking at another video video image. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's something different. Yeah. Yeah. No, you exactly you you're experiencing what the camera, what the film, that image that's going down on the film through the lens. Exactly. And you're seeing all of the aspects of that, like depth of field, focus. I miss that so much. And also there's texture of the ground glass and everything. It just has a more, I don't know, quality. feel to it. It feels like you're making a proper movie. I wish everybody listening at some point gets to do some film just to experience it even though I know it's not the norm anymore but it's a different thing. But I jumped way ahead. ⁓ You were an artist, you were in art school as a painter. I wouldn't say I was an artist because I kind of wasn't great at art school I have to say. kind of what led me on to do this fortuitous well yeah possibly I had to really work out pretty quickly that I needed to make some kind of commercial sort of return from what I'd learned at art school because there was no way was I gonna make money out of art and I didn't particularly want to be a struggling artist in a a garrot somewhere so so ⁓ thought, well, what's the best way to make money out of it? And really, fortunately, we had a tutor at the time. This was a time where people were experimenting with photography, mixed media, video, there was performance art, all sorts of- What year is this? Like- ⁓ this is like, God. ⁓ I'm not sure if I want to tell you. okay. No, was, yeah, late seventies. Late seventies. Yeah. And it was- like video was just becoming a thing in the art world and people were- Yeah, it was video tape. Yeah. And all those old stuff where like you look at it now and the light is streaking as they pan across. Yeah. It's got all these, it looks really grungy. Yeah. When you look at it now. Yeah. We had a tutor that used a clockwork Bolex in- like the old wind up the wind up clockwork bolex and he used it in performance art that he had and ⁓ He brought it into college one day and said right we'll get some film and we'll start Experimenting with what you can do with it. This was six the 16 millimeter 16 millimeter black and white black and white Yeah, and he showed us basically how to develop it ourselves. We built a dark room ⁓ wound it onto plastic spools, put it into a bath, processed it. ⁓ And then we contact printed it. So we got a positive out of the negative. ⁓ And obviously all the results were really varied. ⁓ Some of them didn't come out at all. But no matter what you did, it was, it was always considered interesting. And it was a time when also there was a movement in art. which you call the film materialists, where they used to project just raw footage, negatives reversed upside down, contact printer. They were just experimenting, messing around with film. So it had that kind of really sort of, was tactile, film was tactile. Like you could feel it going through when you were winding it onto the spool, you had to feel to get the sprockets into the grooves of the spool when you were processing. the smell of the chemicals in the dark room and all of that was all part of, it was like an experience. So it just took me over really. And we started using the Clockwork Bowl X. We shot all sorts of stuff that I would. be embarrassed to show now. again, this was all sort of like experimental art. This wasn't filmmaking. No, it wasn't. Yeah, exactly. It was completely experimental. Yeah. But it just gave me an interest in photography as well from that day. Oh, I would also think that must have been great because there are not that there are rules necessarily, but there are no rules. It's just like, something, let's try this. absolutely. And also they were, the results came from complete mistakes. that you were making. ⁓ People who would fog the film because somebody walked into the dark room which was just a black curtain that we had and it flashed the film. And so that would then be included in the student's presentation. You'd have people... Sitting in the audience stroking their chins. That's an interesting effect. what that means. That's art, right? it's everything's on purpose even if it's by accident. I mean, I remember we did a student project where we went up to Scotland and We shot some fishermen off the back of a fishing boat and we only had a hundred foot We were given a hundred foot film each ⁓ to use and ⁓ myself and another student went and photographed these fishermen throwing, ⁓ catching fish ⁓ with a ⁓ whole flock of seagulls sort of following the boat and we just sort of filmed this but we got seawater onto the lens ⁓ that created a kind of the image was given a quality messed up exactly. ⁓ And then ⁓ when we processed it, we processed it, seem to remember the wrong way around ⁓ when we contact printed it. And eventually it was kind of ⁓ when we projected it, all of these mistakes that we'd made, know, unawares, ⁓ we then had to exhibit it. in front of our tutors, which we did, and we did, we made it into a loop. So it looped all the way. So it was this rhythmic pattern of everything. And it became so completely abstract by pure chance, but it won an award at the college for that year. we felt like the biggest frauds out for doing it. But the thing is, I can understand, and I would probably have the same feeling. But you're not, right? Because you didn't intend to do all that, but then you said, this isn't working. So how do we make this into something that does work and is interesting? And I think that's actually what as operators and filmmakers, you do so often where you go, okay, we wanted to do this, you can't do this. What can we do that tells the story? Absolutely, yeah. I I think that's most of my day sometimes, because I never have it quite the way I want it. Yeah, it's it's kind of making the most of you mistakes. That's it is absolutely knowing how to turn a mistake into an asset. Yeah. I mean, I think what's there's a great saying I always think of which is ⁓ success is going from one failure to another ⁓ with the same amount of enthusiasm. And that I think that's Winston Churchill's ⁓ words, not mine. someone smarter than us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. And the constant ⁓ making good of your your mistakes ⁓ is gets you places more than being afraid to to make mistakes or to to be a failure in something is to take it on and I'll tell you, along those lines, I just finished a very small budget feature that was sort of a passion project for someone. And ⁓ it's about Leonardo da Vinci and it takes place mostly in the one huge hall where he painted The Last Supper. So it's almost all on one set. And when we started it out, and I'm making these numbers up, but we had, you know, almost more than two thirds of the time we were supposed to have a techno crane. And then by the time that we got into production, We had two days of a technocrane and the rest was a 23 foot jib and a Ronin. And so my Dolly grip, Mark Catania, who's just, I mean, he's unbelievable. ⁓ We talked about it and I said, okay, so let's pretend like we have a technocrane and we'll say, what would we do? And then let's look at it and say, okay, like what's the one line that we can keep, you know, with the track and booming up and down. what's the one line that we can do straight and then let's make everything else a curve, because we'll just embrace that and lean into it. And I was gonna say we did, but he did some of the most amazing stuff. And I think it's better than it would have been if we had a techno crane, because we couldn't do exactly what we wanted. So we had to make it into something. And by the end of it, both of us talked about it. And I said, you know, I think... were better for having had to do this. Sometimes when your arms are tied behind your backs and it's not working and you have to make it into something, you come up with something better than what it was. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. And I think that's what kinda keeps you on your toes as an operator. What's making it interesting, yeah, exactly, fun. It should be, that's what it should be. It should be fun because I think once all of the, I always think that... You know, once you've made all your decisions and you've set things up and this is certainly the case with something like Steadicam where you're kind of multitasking all the time, but your mind is completely occupied with not just the sort of aesthetics of a shop, but also the physicality of it and how you get into these positions. It's like once it's all done, you just relax and enjoy the ride. And it is a ride, you know, as an operator because you're the person in the front row of the audience. You're seeing it for the first time. ⁓ And ⁓ you're the one that's affecting that what the audience is seeing. So it's exciting. ⁓ So how did you, where did you make the transition into sort of narrative film? How did that happen? Well, that was a combination of just, I guess. chance events really when you look back on it. I mean, I knew I kind of wanted to ⁓ work in the generally the film industry and I knew that I was good at the loading film and working with film cameras. Just from the school itself. From the school and also my own and talking to photographers and you know, ⁓ I kind of just approached a lot of Companies I knew that were shooting documentary film I hide myself out on any production That would have me at any whatever level whether I was paid or not lots of student shoots and stuff like that at the time we had We were working with art ons super 16 art on I was at the end of the year magnet the magnet Mag that you put in, that was such a beautiful camera. It a great handheld camera too. Yeah, mean the 35mm version, I used it on the Steadicam a lot and I still say for a film camera, know, it was the best. Even though it was side to side. Yeah, yeah, but you know. It sleek. It was sleek and the 35mm was kind of lighter and smaller in a sense than a lot of fully built. digital cameras now. And it flew really well on a Steadicam. Although at that stage I wasn't doing Steadicam, that came later. I was just simply assisting and loading mags and trying to get onto any kind of shoots I possibly could. ⁓ And I think my first sort of commercial jobs were mainly on documentary, freelance documentary stuff. Some in the art world where we were doing dance, they were filming dance routines. ⁓ I did some news gathering in Northern Ireland ⁓ at the time of the hunger strikes, which was a big moment in Irish history and a terrifying experience to be in as a young Brit being in Northern Ireland. But I worked with a couple of crews that News gathering, not UK, but there was a French crew I worked with a couple of times. And I was basically just assisting camera at that point. But I knew through that documentary ⁓ sort of experience that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the person carrying and framing the camera. so, ⁓ yeah, that's where I went. ⁓ with that eventually people trusted me to shoot stuff and it was just that progression ⁓ and then I guess it was really ⁓ looking at that point ⁓ realizing that I wanted to be in the area of dramatic camera work you know film drama rather than documentary and that kind of coincided with me ⁓ Looking at films and the new Movement of cameras with steady camera, you know at that time I didn't even know it was a steady cam But there was only like a handful of them over here first absolutely wasn't there one guy who rented a bunch out or something? Yeah, well that might I mean that was one other Sort of moments of serendipity if you like for my career. Yeah was that having done a steady cam course ⁓ over here. Who took the course? No, was a national film and television school one and it was with Nigel Curtin and Ted Churchill. ⁓ you get learned from Ted Churchill. Yeah, yeah. And I was really lucky to actually then be asked a couple of years later by Ted to go and do a Tiffin. course as an instructor. ⁓ wow. So I got to work alongside Ted. Ted had his pipe in the entire... ⁓ yeah, yeah. I mean it was the Ted show really. Ted show. Well you've heard the thing where Garrett has said Garrett invented the study cam and Ted invented the study cam operator. Yes, exactly. Yeah. The whole attitude that you took is, know, Ted was the inspiration. Yeah, he was a classic. Yeah, and I mean I still have a copy of his... ⁓ Steadycam operators manual of style manual style. Yeah, and that's still a Bible really is like when the rare rarity Yeah, yeah, no, that's he was an interesting guy. I Met him once but but the stories are endless Well, I've actually brought a t-shirt along from Ted Churchill. No way. Yeah was long to show you Take a picture of it after thing that's great because yeah He had those great t-shirts and the great ads and whatever. right, yeah. That's a classic. think the Ted Churchill humor group was his I've heard about this. Yeah. Or was it the kind of his company that he had that was manufacturing these t-shirts. Yeah, well before that was an easy thing to I I had a whole set, but eventually over the years they've given away really. Yeah. ⁓ but I've got one left. Can I just see what it is now? I'll explain to people and then I'll put a picture of it on there. I'm excited to see it. It's in pristine condition because I've always kept it just as a souvenir, really. ⁓ I think I've seen this t-shirt. It's with the vest on the front. That's great. on the front. What's on the back? ⁓ no dolly. No dolly. What, a panther dolly, I guess? Yeah, and that's his Churchill humor group. Logo aside. ⁓ my gosh. I'm taking I'm taking a picture and their logo is brilliant on it Take a picture of you holding holding the whole thing right now. Just so I have it. That's fantastic I think that was the classic right there. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's ⁓ As I said, I keep it as a souvenir. I don't wear it out. Yeah, no, no, I'm understood. So you see you you were one of the first group of people now you were learning on like learning in a model one or model two or what was it was a mark three it was the three but yeah yeah yeah I've I've got a picture which I'll give to you I'll send to you for the thing of me with the mark that's so great fantastic yeah and but after doing the course to go back to that moment of serendipity was that a chance meeting with Pete Cavatute You know, we met one day and discovered that we both did exactly the same thing. Art college. In fact, we had a we had a we had a tutor that was common to both of us. He was actually my ⁓ year tutor and he was a visiting tutor at Peet's Art College. And he was one of the ⁓ tutors using this 16 mil film. Wow. in his performances. So we had that in common and we had in common that we were both at the beginnings of our Steadicam journey, we found out. was further along than I was and so Pete very kindly sort of ⁓ helped me develop along the journey to sort of catch up in a way and he introduced me to a rental company at the time, Tattooist International, which was basically renting art-ons. It was an art-on house. And they thought that the combination of the art-on and the Steadicam were perfect partners. So we ended up actually running a rental outfit from Tattooist International. We started off with one rig. which we shared, Peter and I, and I would do a job and then deliver back to him two in the morning, three in the morning, or whatever. the days. Yeah, and off he would go, and eventually we were getting so much work that we had to get another rig, so we each had one. And then in came tattooers, because there were a lot of people at that time saying, ⁓ How does it work? Show me, you know, it sounds amazing. And so we were here pretty much at the beginnings of the steady cam movement here in the UK. That's amazing. And were you so were you conventional operating then as well, or were you just going out and doing steady cam? I was still doing all sorts of docco stuff as an operator. an operator. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always kind of say that if I hadn't done documentary, And if I hadn't sort of had a physical connection with the camera and being able to move and feel confident with that movement and ⁓ making compositional decisions with the camera, what have you, then Steadycam would have been 10 times harder. Is the documentary aspect because you don't have any time to plan and it's happening and you just have to make decisions? that? Pretty much, yeah. mean, apart from doing setups like interviews and but capturing moments, you know, that can be cut as well because that's the other thing is doing documentary really taught me about how you edit stuff together, what's useful and what isn't useful. you nowadays? Are you still thinking about the edit as you shoot? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No. In fact, if ⁓ I can get any feedback at all from an editor. about the material that we're providing, that that's all part and parcel of the decision making. Yeah. of my favorite things is, hopefully after a couple of days, if I hear back from the editor that they love what we're giving them and we're giving them so much stuff or whatever, it always makes me feel good because it makes you go, okay, so I'm in the right frame of mind of how you're cutting this. Yeah. You know, not that we make all the decisions, but, there's that thing where you go back and go, you think we need this or are we missing that? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, also little things that they... You know about movement, the speed of movement or something, it'll say maybe, you know that scene that you gave us, you know, well, you shot on a wide lens and then you went onto a tighter lens, don't quite cut because the speed of your movement, you haven't kind of adjusted for the lens size, you know, stuff like that. ⁓ all sorts of little beats and moments. And also it works vice versa as well because ⁓ sometimes an editor will say, we haven't got this or that or I'm missing, you know, a close up. And you've got to remember that they're kind of looking on a smaller monitor. ⁓ what they're looking on isn't the perfect quality of image reproduction that you're hoping for. And you know, like as an operator, ⁓ I think we're pretty much all of us may have like photographic memories almost. I wish I did. You can kind of remember the shots that you've done. think pretty much that you know, no, no, I'm sure we shot that and you go back and you look at it and you say, yeah, look at that moment there. That's okay. We, you know, know, I know I saw that somewhere. I can't tell you where and then you have to look for it. So I think that kind of relationship with, with an editor, if you can. Yeah. I mean it used to be easier than it is now. Which is ironic because it should be easier now with phones and everything. Absolutely. But again I have to say that that is another example of so many monitors on set. So many ⁓ phones, iPads, what have you. And how many people are looking and not seeing. I don't know if you've experienced this but I have this thing where I'll be... ⁓ I sort of, I would hope, I would assume that you're the same way as I sort of do things the way that I always did it. I mean, it's changed slightly, but, and you know, I'll look at an actor and there'll be a hair out of place. And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, I'm sure somebody sees that. But then I think, nope, I can't do it. So, hey, can we get, you know, Karen from Hair Over Hair to take a look? And then invariably the answer will be one of two things like, yeah, yeah, I know. Or, ⁓ thank you for letting me know. And it's like, You always got to do it, but sometimes you get the, know, we know. I'm thinking like, I just want to make sure. Not saying whatever, but there is that tendency to sometimes go, well, everybody sees that. And then, you you finish the shot and you go, we got to go again, right? And they're like, why? And they're like, because the elephant walked through the background and like, did? And you know, someone's on their phone getting Amazon or whatever they're doing. So you just can't, there's a hundred monitors. It's almost like back when there were no monitors. You were more on top of it because you knew nobody saw it or something. I don't know. It's weird, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, I think that all the time you can't assume even though as you say that all the monitors on set everyone's Everyone's looking at something different I guess or maybe they're not looking at it and you're assuming they are but you can't assume anymore It's I mean, I think that's the thing is the operator I mean you you're the kind of gatekeeper of everybody's work and you can set something up in terms of movement composition and you've got all of your ducks in a row and you've got them and that's great. But then there might be something there that you kind of, you've got to do a double check almost like a nervous, as I say, around the frame and just sort of look at other aspects who say, does the wet down cover the whole frame? You know, that's a class old, the back corner. There's the wet down is missing the back corner of the frame. then You've got to kind of look at that and you're probably the only person other than maybe the DOP who is as an observant as the operator you would hope. But even still, have to kind of help the DOP sometimes because they've got so much on their plate with other things. They've got the production designer on the phone and someone else texting them about this or that. And I think some of itself, I mean, honestly, I don't mind saying it. Some of it's... self-serving because I don't want to get caught with my pants down because I was worried we were going to pan over here and I didn't say anything and we panned over there and the wet down wasn't there or whatever. So you're constantly covering yourself, right? But I think, yeah, I think you do have to, you do have to risk that sort of making a pain of yourself with a department. It's a fine line, right? And I was explaining to some film students the other day, said, look, It's nothing against them, but the gaffer always wants to bring the lights in because the gaffer is worried about the best lighting, right? But you have to push them back out, but still help them make sure they get what they want. And everybody's looking at the piece of the pie. I think we have to look at the entire pie because we were the ones left holding the ball if something falls through the cracks. So yeah, it's like the final. Do you find it? Do you find it? Is it it nerve wracking or is it I mean? ⁓ Yeah, I mean, it is nerve wracking at times. ⁓ Certainly if the shot you're doing is expensive and there's only one where the time's running out, only have one take. It's maybe a stunt. there's a huge reset time. So it does sort of focus the mind a little bit. ⁓ there's, but there's nothing wrong with a little bit of fear because it does focus the mind and sharpen sharpen you up. Yeah, that's what makes it exciting. been at Steadycam at this point? How long have you been operating at this point? Right now. Let's see, 35 years. Okay, I'm right there about with you. Yeah. Do you still get nervous when you you start a job? you get a job? When I start a job. Or do you get, maybe you never did? No, no, I definitely, I mean, there's positive nerves and then there's negative nerves. What's the difference? I find that nervous to start with once I get into the job then the nerves disappear and I think that it's good at the beginning, you know to get the ⁓ you know to get the butterflies. it the same kind of nerves that it was when you because when you first start out you're like ⁓ my equipment works and I hope but which I'm assuming maybe is not that anymore is it a different type of nerves well equipment generally certainly steady cams a lot more is a lot more reliable I'll try to explain this to people like you know idea that you pull it out of the box and it works you have no idea how great that I mean you always basically I don't know about you but in the States it was like the first thing you did was you you pulled out the soldering iron and you heated it up and left it there and then you took your study camera out. Yeah, you got the hairdryer going. Yeah, the hairdryer going. It was ridiculous. You know, you learned how to say a few Buddhist prayers. Yeah, we were just at the, I mean, I didn't run into you, but we were both at the BSC the other day and looking at all, I mean, this equipment is unbelievable. It's ridiculous. mean, at risk of being like a... a boring old fart as they say. ⁓ They don't know they've got it so good. They have no idea. But I was talking to one of the guys about it and I said, you know, it's sort of like when we started, they handed us this wooden square and the changes were such that they were like chiseling stuff off each time and making it better. Like, and it was just game changing stuff to where it became round. And now they're just sort of sanding the edges. There's nothing that just is... makes or breaks anybody, but it's just these little incremental things now as opposed to like the fact that everything works. Yeah, it was that. And yeah. And but the good thing about it is that it does leave a lot of for an operator and certainly with something like Steadicam, it just leaves a much bigger part of your brain for the, I guess the important stuff. So all the technical. Yeah. anxieties that you have is this going to work or is that going to work or ⁓ this is jammed or I need a new the screws dropped out this now it's not going to work is you know all these concerns that you had and also all the way down to is it level is am I keeping it level although I have to say I was having a conversation at the show again with somebody who was asking me like what do you think of this stabilization device and that stabilization device and what have you and I say great they all different tools for different parts of the job. But I don't know anybody that got fired for being off level. I've known them be fired because they're a bad operator or a bad steady cam operator. But if you're good, we never got fired for being off level. That's the kind of, but then again, there's more obsessing with stabilization now. Well now it is, if anything's off level, people go, why is that one degree off? Because they're so, that's a whole other... But you know, it's an interesting story about stabilization without being too technical about it. I mean, I remember doing Hot Fuzz, and we were doing a car chase in Hot Fuzz, and we had the latest Libra mount on the back of a tracking vehicle. And it was literally its first outing. I can't remember which model Libra it was, but so the electronics were still new. Yeah. But we had a one 80 mil lens tracking with the police car shooting and the, our tracking vehicle was on pretty rough terrain. And anyway, I can remember thinking, this is amazing. I was getting great stuff. just towards the end of one take, the whole thing with it being new and the, the, the head tech was like a little not so of a with the new software and it started to learn it sort of messed up and start bouncing around all over the place and I remember Edgar the director going what did you just do there that's great he loved it so they then subsequently told me that in post they destabilized all the rest of the time I just that to match a bit of that So you have to ask why are you using stabilization? What does it give us? something recently where the director of photography came in and he said, turn the stabilization off. Yeah. I said, really? And he said, look, I know you know how to do what you're doing, but I just want that little life to it. I don't want it to be so perfect for the shot. Okay, great. I was happy, but I don't want to go past. I asked you about what the difference is. And ⁓ so what's the nerves now? Nerves now is at beginning of a show. What is it? I think it's those sort of excitement nerves. They're not the nerves of faith, you know, I'm gonna fail. Yeah, but their excitement and also it's it's like ⁓ I think after a certain stage you're confident that are you going to be able to deliver? All your stuff as an operator But you you're not sure whether you're gonna get on with the director get on with the deer. I mean Hopefully you've worked with a DOP before if you haven't if everybody's new Yeah on set then you have to develop new relationships sure and hopefully You know if you're in a situation the ideal situation for me is you know your DOP and your director know each other they go on really well almost on like a friendship level and your job kind and and there also have Producers that back them as well ⁓ Then your job's pretty easy as an operator. Hopefully you can just find a way of supporting that kind of harmony that they have. then other situations, yeah, your nerves might come in if you go, well, I don't know this director, I don't know this DOP, and I've heard things about this or them or the way they work or, you know, maybe an actor that is unknown, you kind of go, uh-oh, I've heard... They're tricky or whatever. What do you do when you walk into a situation with a new actor you've worked with and you've heard this person is a little prickly? You know, you've heard stories. Yeah. I kind of try and get eye contact as soon as I can and introduce myself. And then that's my job done in a way. And they can take me or leave me at that point. But you do. You have to sort of acknowledge that you're going to be working together for a time and just, I guess, just show that you haven't got fangs and you're a reasonable sort of person and you're there to help them in a way. Not asking any names, but I'm guessing that you've been doing this long enough that you've run into the type of actor who just was not someone who's a collaborator with you. Yeah. mean, I think I've never met one, fortunately. that is as bad as people say they are. think sometimes those things get a little blown out of proportion to them. Yeah, yeah. Warning ahead, you know, that, they're really, they're terrible. Well, they can be unfriendly in the sense that they kind of don't acknowledge you all the time, but that, to me, that's fine. I mean, I've not really experienced anything. I've seen bad behavior, but nothing personal to the operator. I think generally we get quite a lot of respect from actors. Generally we do. think even if they... I mean, I'm not saying anything against actors. They're good people and bad people who are camera operators and study camera operators. There are all sorts of people. But I think most of them realize that they need us on their side on some level and don't want to... But but I asked because people do run especially when you're younger you run you run into people who are prickly and yeah It's hard to figure out. Do you have I think think actors they smell fear That's why with emotions. Yeah, and I think if you are nervous Yeah, and you show those nerves they there's a sort of a momentum that gathers up they think of a yeah, you know And also there may be an age difference. I mean, I find as I've got older that I'm kind of much older than most of the actors. getting there too. So there's a natural sort of way things happen in general. Do you have a way of sort of when you meet a new actor for the first time assessing sort of what they might need from you or how you can be of ⁓ help or what that relationship should be like? It's pretty quick. pretty soon you realize if they're a good technical actor I think. Just by watching? watching. I've had actors come up to me ⁓ even before I've made an approach to introduce myself they've come and introduced themselves and have said you know ⁓ anything you want me to do. So you actually ask them or let them know I'm here for you. yeah I think so. I think that's valuable. And I think you do put yourself on the line there because they might not want your help. They may ⁓ kind of object to being approached without being introduced. And sometimes that is if you gauge it ⁓ on set that the actor, a new actor may avoid your gaze and you can kind of sense that you don't know whether it's coming from. Shyness or whether they just don't engage with crew members or what have you so you think okay? I need to go through the DOP or through the ad First ad or through the director even there's like could you introduce me and so that's another way round of you know of getting I guess an acceptance. Yeah, bye bye. No, that's smart. That's very smart. I want to ask you about some specific movies. I can't have you on here and not talk about Atonement. Is Atonement the only thing, are you tired of talking about Atonement? Well, I mean Atonement now the shot has its own life, it's strange. It has its own mythology. And there's so much wonderful stuff in that movie but of course that shot on the beach it's just, it's epic. mean what is it, five and a half minutes long? It's five minutes. Which nowadays of course people go five minutes, it's not as big as some of these things or whatever but it's... What was it? Yeah, ⁓ and extras and ⁓ you know, the story goes behind that was that Joe ⁓ Wright, the director, wanted obviously longer to shoot that sequence. More time to shoot more time. And and also ⁓ initially it wasn't a kind of conceived as a wanna. But I think he was told, well, you know, and also he didn't want to shoot with just 50 extras and make it look like a TV representation of the beach. So he said, I want it to be scale. So I think that what happened was the production said, well, you can have 1300 extras, but you've only got them for two days. So then it suddenly happened to you. So yeah, there's a combination as always in filmmaking about the practical and the aesthetic and the art. So that combined. But of course it worked perfectly well because it was a dreamlike sequence really. was a nightmare that the main character, Robbie, was experiencing. And it wasn't about a battle. It was about a battle that was about to happen, but it was really about this guy that was dying. ⁓ And everything was slightly unhinged and a little bit surreal and a little bit dreamy. works so well. I mean, it's amazing shot, but it's amazing storytelling within the film as well. It's incredible. I mean, for me, the shot came at the end of the movie. So that was the... tricky thing. We'd been going nine weeks, I think, by the time we got to do that shot. So it wasn't as if it came early in the movie where I could have trained and slurred. You've sort of beat up by that. Completely. Yeah. And it's on the beach, is, is, mean, did you, were you just walking on sand or did you have something down? There's there's part of it that's sand. Yeah. Cause that's rough. Yeah. No, I mean, we, uh, The whole first part of it is off the back of a tracking vehicle. It is, okay. So I was sort of, I just watched it again recently. I was trying to figure out it feels like it, but then I thought maybe I might've seen it. So. No, it's an electric tracking vehicle. And then you get off of it. just step off basically as we come around the back of the barge, the London barge. Yeah. Yeah. There's, just designed it so that the movement of the truck matched the movement of the shots. you know. There wasn't a direction change. So you didn't have to walk on the beach for that long. Yeah. And then the beach bit is just by the barge and up the ramp. The ramp was probably the hardest. ⁓ On the promenade, there was a concrete ramp. Sort of where the steps are? Yeah. ⁓ so there's a ramp that There's a ramp that takes you up from the beach onto the promenade level. Which is probably pretty steep. And that was quite steep. And there's also sideways. We were kind of going sideways sideways forward. So, you know, your hips were at different levels, you know, so you twisted out of shape. mean, now all of that is is kind of as I say, the shot almost has a life of its own and its own mythology. I look back now, it's like 20 years ago. It's one. And I kind of think, you know. I thought often would we do it any differently now because we have all of the digital cameras that we could do it on and it might be longer now, It would be longer. maybe it doesn't need to be. But that's the interesting thing is that we're now used to super long shots. well that's why I said it's five minutes, which is massive. Of course, now people are doing longer shots. But the thing about most of those longer shots, something like adolescence aside, which is his own thing or whatever. A lot of times I look at them and I'm like, this is just going because it's going. It's not, it's not telling the story anymore. It's just going cause they want to, you know, I'm not all the time, but yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting because, ⁓ with that mythology, I have things recited back to me about it, you know, that are ridiculous really completely fabricated. Do you have an example of one of them? Well, yeah, I mean, well, common ones have been the time length is It's like oh, it's it's ten minutes or minutes long. No, it's not it's under five minutes just under I think it's 458 or something so there any reason it's 458 is because My When we were looking at it and timed it out it was it was just longer than a regular 400 foot magazine what I was gonna ask you know they rolled down thousand footers to 500 Well, the yes, that's what we did. But we got a magazine that was initially meant for the Pan Panavision Panastar, think that was to be 500 could hold 500. We do the same thing on a huge shot on ER where they were rolling it down to 500. Well, you know it and you know that it's heavier. Yeah, it is heavier. It's an old metal alloy. a matter of fact, now that you say that. I remember because I could never figure out why that we had to shoot that shot on a 29 which was not what I had wanted to and I wanted to be wider but it was because it was the only thing that I could balance out the front to back and that's because the mag was heavier. That's not how I remember it. So all these little sort of technical details actually added to the mythology of the shot. do you remember how many times you did that? Yeah, we did. We did five takes. We went for a sixth one and I couldn't get around the course basically, but it had to be the third take because not from an operating point of view, but basically from Seamus, Seamus, the DOP, his point of view, the light had gone after the, you know, there's a magic light. Yeah, there's a magic light to that take number three. And we did. take four and Seamus wasn't happy. And he already knew that take three was good. So he said to me, look, take three's in the bag. Don't worry. You got to do it three more times. plus also as well on that day, we'd done rehearsals with a fully loaded as well, because we started ⁓ just with a finder walking the course. And then so that Joe could see and plan out every element at every point on the course. planning of the whole thing must be. It's just hard to comprehend all of everything that goes on in there. You know what happened with the planning was so interesting was that Josh Robertson, our AD, freaked out more than I did when Joe said, I want to do this as a Warner. But in a weird way, he almost has a harder job. mean, maybe not physically, absolutely. mean, that's It's incredible. This is also a kind of an example, I guess, of and it refers to your career as an operator. It's a career of anybody in the film industry is to know what your limitations are and to ask for help if need be. Josh knew he couldn't. He had no. He'd not planned anything that scale. And at the time, there's still a legendary A.D. Michael Stevenson working. in the business and Michael had worked on Gandhi. Right. So Josh said, let's get Michael in. He's probably like 1300. Yeah. Well, and the interesting thing is Michael really didn't work on. He didn't work with a loud haler or he didn't, he had a radio, but he went round every single, gave every single group of, ⁓ essays who were doing stuff in the background and number. that he would obviously call out when they were coming onto camera. But he would literally go around after every take and talk to them, every single one. ⁓ I love that. And he would give them a backstory of why they were doing this. is great. And he would, and also at the beginning of the, of the shot, Joe gave a speech to everybody that sort of gave the emotional. Yeah. Sort of feeling of what that shot should be. So he gave everybody a kind of a reason and a motivation to be in that in that shot. But the other thing that both of those things does do and I do this, I talk about this with students as I do this with with background artists as well, is I think it makes them realize you are you are just as big a part of this. Like if everything's great and you're on your phone in the background or whatever it happens to be. Yeah, you got it. You you got to be doing you've got your little story and yeah thing and it's all part of the pain Dave we could do a podcast just on the operators work with background. Yeah, you know and It's an interesting thing how you work with the AEDs to get the background to do what what you want because it's it's key to To the flow of a shot thing absolutely no question about it and they can make or break a big I mean again 1300 background people to one or two people could could have destroyed that yeah Yeah, they weren't and so so when you're on them So there's two things that have nothing to do with your operating that I have to ask you about that shot The white horse being shot. Yeah Is it a horse that's trained to fall to the ground? Yeah, are you kidding me? That's a real horse? Yeah, that's a real horse And it didn't get hurt? I think the only visual effects in that, I might again... It's 20 years ago. Yeah. I think is the exit wound of the bullet that you see a small spurt. Yes. ⁓ Of blood out. I think that's a visual effect. That horse actually fell to the ground. It went to its knees. They had a few... the captain ⁓ of the cavalry that's... Marching up and down the lines. He fires the pistol. Yeah And it's a starting pistol and the horse is trained to fall to its knees when it hears it and they also I'm not sure Because I know there's animal welfare. Yeah, you stay here and everything I'm not sure if they didn't have a wire on on the Reins of the front of the horse. So I give it all this head back because the thing is I mean at least It like it falls down and goes on its side. I mean, it's alarming when you see it. You sort of think like, was there nobody on set? It's amazing. then the other thing about that was that Joe didn't want that to feature largely simply because he didn't want to focus on it. It's almost incidental. So the whole thing was like, and the other thing, when you go past the horses, just make sure they're edge of frame. Well, but that was the only thing that I noticed was the white horse that gets shot. You see that, but then he's shooting other horses, but they're almost off frame. It's off cam. So it's an indication of like, this horror is going on more, but you're not showing. So this is the interesting thing as well from, mean, because my worry was like, well, I can do that, but I'm framing for the actors. So the actors have to be in the position. Exactly. And also we're still on the back. the tracking vehicle at that point so you can't go left or right Congo left or right so true Clive our poor tracking car driver was literally sort of like had a finger wag at him and say you have to get this Otherwise where we're have to go again. Yeah, because if you were walking yourself you go I could keep that all day Yeah, I just angle myself a little bit more this way or that way. So, you know that work kind of worked for us. But the thing about the operator as well at that point, I often think, you know, ⁓ when you're moving off onto something or you there's a subject that is ⁓ you can't spend too long on, but the audience still have to register it. There's that fine line that the operator's key in because you have to think of yourself as the audience for the first time and quite often you'll do things and the director might say to you, oh you were on that too long. And I say yeah but that's cinema time. There's a difference between real time, we know it's gonna happen and we see it maybe four or five times and each time you see it. Director wants to move off it quicker and you go like have I? Registered that as a person seeing it for the first time and that's the key. You know, yeah seen it seven times But it's the first yeah I always I think it the thing I think of when you're talking about that is when you when you go on to something that has to be read by the audience Yes, always that's a classic example. Yeah, you don't be too long too short, but you also don't want to be too long So you read it like one and a half times or something like that? Yeah. Yeah Yeah, that's a good point because there's an example of that in atonement in the film as well, which is a really which is of reading of reading Yeah, it's a typewriter that writes the the key word that is that the Okay. Yeah, which is the four letter word. yeah beginning which I won't say but everyone knows. Yep Watch the movie. How long does it stay on the screen? And how long do you yeah? Yeah, I'm sure there was When when is it like a shock? Yeah, or when is it just? Long yep, and I mean that that actually was was done by our second unit that the whole typewriter thing But something like that if you are reading something you you need to be kind of informed about them the Meaning of it within the whole part of that that comes into editing is you also have to go All right, what is what are the visuals that in the in the cut that are gonna lead up to this? So what's going on with the audience? How are they are they intent on something they know this is coming or yeah taking them by surprise because then you've got to add in that extra second Right. Yeah, like okay. Let's set. ⁓ now we're looking. ⁓ that's what this you know, also the operator at that point I think is aware of you know, the you know, the the DOPs ⁓ Side of things because you could be cutting from a bright scene to a low-lit scene. Yeah So if I'm looking at that look suddenly it's like coming from outdoors to indoors I need longer to register something to you know, adjust. Yeah and get back into that world Yeah, absolutely. So the horses to go back to the horses that was that was the key About that was how long do you leave? Linger on the white horse being shot and then you know Sort of ease off. You don't want it to look like ⁓ we can't see the rest So the movements as well off the white horse just has to look like part of the camera tracking thing. So it's yeah, that was a you say about nervousness. That was one of my little nervous bits in that whole show. I can understand that because there's so many aspects of that you can't control and also and also that you get so far into that shot and they're not going to use that. you've got to go back to the beginning again. Yeah. And it's funny because I was talking to someone just the other day about how 20 seconds in you can reset and maybe a minute in, maybe a minute and half. Do you get three, four minutes in? Like there could be a tank going through the middle of the set and you don't want to be the one to stop. Yeah. The other thing that I have to tell you that I always notice about the atonement shot, and I don't know if it'll be interesting to see whether other people catch this or not, is There's a shot where it's about halfway through and you're sort of pulling back towards the beach and there's ⁓ the Ferris wheel deep in the background and there's a guy hanging off of the Yes, the stunt guy. And all I think when I'd see it is nowadays that would just be some digital but I'm sure it was some blue stunt guy who was just going around and around. It's crazy. That whole shot is just amazing. ⁓ When you approach a shot like that with that many cues, how do you mentally... ⁓ Well, it's a yeah, that's an interesting thing because I I kind of ⁓ Think of it as like a shopping list almost a shot. Yeah key moments this to this this to this to this and obviously ⁓ Mental rehearsal is really important not just in a shot like that, but generally as an operator I think learning to mentally rehearse a shot ⁓ that and go through the key points. ⁓ And if you can, literally, if it's steady cam or it's handheld, then you also ⁓ physically rehearse it, move around, get used to, you know, basically a muscle memory. ⁓ It's really important to be able to do that. But yeah, I kind of, I will actually make a list Yeah. And you just look at it in between. just look at it in between. then there's all, you know, there's a lot of downtime on set. Yeah. And as an operator, I find myself, that's the time that I can do a lot of like, rather than go and go to the craft or get a cup of tea or something is stay sitting on the dolly. Watch. Mentally rehearse what you think is gonna happen ⁓ And obviously you you're observing all the time people doing stuff for the set So you're kind of going to art department. Don't worry about that. That's not gonna be in shot ⁓ Or can you be careful about putting any sand down there or whatever? You're gonna walk. Yeah, you're just literally from beginning to end, know, so there's no time you have offset really is the operator because you're doing Don Devine is an operator in LA who's amazing. And I joke about the fact that the hardest part of being an operator is you can't go to the bathroom. Exactly. You leave and it's a Western and you come back two minutes later and it's a romantic comedy and you're like, what changed? did everything change? Say like, you know, operating's like 10 % operating and 90 % bladder control. And the older you get, like 99 % bladder control. I have to ask you about, you did Bohemian Rhapsody and doing all that, all the concert stuff at the end must have been phenomenal and such a blast. Yeah, no, was really, really good. It's the best part of the movie definitely for in terms of camera operating, I think, as a challenge. Were you trying to create it shop for shop? mean were you being religious? Well we did look at a lot of YouTube footage because of course it's historical but it's not you know it's not deep history it's recent history and what you did feels exactly like it. Yeah well there are some key shots like for instance when Freddie Mercury aka Malik chases the On the camera operator is on YouTube. You can see that. I noticed that when that happened in the movie, was like, I love the fact that they recreated that. Do you know who that camera operator was? Who the who the the real one was in? No, I don't. But we had ⁓ we had a there's a there's a guy that works as an essay now, ⁓ Ray Andrew. Who was also an operator on the shining but you don't know a UK operator that part of the shining he now works, I mean raised kind of ⁓ been around as a ⁓ SA for four years as well and he turned up on Bohemian Rhapsody. ⁓ so he started telling everybody about what had happened on the day. Like an actual historian. Yeah. So we actually got him a part in the film. when that's all going on, Live Aid, there's a cut to the vision mixing truck outside. Okay. And there's a shop that tracks into the vision mixing and Ray is the vision mixer there. So it's like an echo. That's fun. And also the actual power pod that's in the middle of the stage, which is the remote head sitting at the top, was the actual remote Because that's the one they used for the shows. because it was, I think the first time they'd used on a live event like that a remote head. Wow. And that was the one that was used. Although it wasn't working when we... when we shot, we never used it. The idea was to use it and I can't remember why we didn't in the end, but we got a shot that was from that position. Yeah, put another camera up another camera up there. It's such great work. The feeling of it is just so, and it's kind of cool that it's kind of cool that that movie shone a light on that performance, which is just, I mean, one of the most iconic live performances of all time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. Initially, we had it broken down into sections of songs. And I can't remember exactly now the sequence that we did. given that the actors, none of them were real musicians. And so they learned chords. It did amazingly. And ⁓ Ben, the actor that plays Roger Taylor, I believe, was shown kind of how you do you know a section of radio Gaga I think for instance and We shot all the way through he did his bit and we you know, we'd planned Okay at this point we track into the drums and everything we stay on the drums and then we got a Kind of we thought we'd cut But then we got word carry on, carry on, this, just keep going, keep going. Well no, what happened was Ben just sort of stopped and said, well, I don't know that bit. I haven't rehearsed it yet. Oh, you kept on shooting and he was like, I'm not with you. Yeah, it's like, I'm not Roger Taylor. That's so funny. But that's great because obviously he convinced them enough that he knew what he was doing. Well, Roger Taylor coached him. And I think Brian May coached Willem Lee. ⁓ You know, they were on set. So they were involved with you. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely Brian May was there a lot. That's so wild. When we actually reconstructed ⁓ the making of Bohemian Rhapsody in the studio, Brian May was there. Wow. Yeah. And I'm sure recollecting on how it actually went down. And there was the red guitar. The famous Brian May red guitar did he play it all for you? No, he didn't and actually I asked the prop guy and I said is that the real the red guitar? Yeah, and he said do you think they'd let Yeah, yeah, so yeah, there's you know, there was a there was a ⁓ lot of support, yeah you know, doing that. And that's the cool part of this business that you get to meet people like that you'd never meet, you know, in these heroes of ours and whatever. I mean, the thing with, I would say the difficult thing with that, all that on stage stuff was that we were using the old 65 mil ARRI camera on it. So, you know, it was all shot 65, which is you know, it's a bit of a beast. It's huge when you know, when you, we did, yeah, we did steady cam handheld. did like a mix of everything. In low mode as well. It's some, it's some stages. Oh, but this is the sixth, but 65 film. No, 65 digital. Oh, actually no. I, that, is that the new one? Not the new? No, this is the old one I used and I was like, oh, this is beautiful. like an Alexa. Oh yeah, the old one was big. I was thinking 65 film, which is another thing, but still that old one was big. The old one was, it was also wide. It was oddly balanced. That was the hardest thing with it. Because the thing is, coming up through film cameras, you have a different criteria of what is heavy to what is heavy now. I remember we did, I did a JJ Abrams thing on that new 65. Is it called the Aries 65, whatever it's called. And when I went into prep, I, I, you know, glanced over and they were already prepping the camera. Well, and was like, I thought we were doing the 65. Like what change? No, that's a 65. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. Wonka. Yeah. It must've just been a crazy, like being in a carnival all the time. I mean, it just, you look at that movie and with the train squirrels and I mean, yeah. It must have been wild. Well, the... mean, doing musicals is a bit of a gift for an operator because it's kind of what we're doing anyway is looking for rhythm and pace and, you know, ⁓ trying to find a way of choreographing something that is, you know, kinetic and interesting, you know, for an audience. ⁓ So when you have a like a musical is built in, you know, that kind of rhythm and pace because you have a soundtrack to go to. Well, there's almost like there's something narrating what you're doing that you can you can play off of. Yeah, something to hang everything on, you know. Which of course, when you're working with great actors and great writing is there in a different way, right? Yeah. There's the cadence of the words and everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, there's yeah, you just kind of follow, or you're not having to create an interest yourself. Well, it also felt watching that like, just felt like with that production design, like you couldn't create a bad frame, right? I mean, just almost, just, everything you looked at seemed magical. Well, the, yeah, the sets were completely three dimensional. So there was, apart from obviously off the top of them, when it was pretty much, you could look in every direction. You know and not have to think hmm that looks a bit pokey in that direction we can't see that we can't see this you know so you weren't limited really in what you could see even the ⁓ you know the locations that we had ⁓ which was Lime Regis when Wonka first ⁓ arrives on the boat was an amazing set location set I should say. That's wonderful. But also as well, mean, there was a lot of great second unit work in that. ⁓ So we were handing off quite a lot of the dance routines ⁓ to second unit, the big dance routines where. Which sometimes you sort of, does that frustrating because you wanted to shoot it? I guess so. mean, yeah, I mean, we had a really good working relationship was Pete Batten was a John Soropoul was the DOP and Pete Batten was the operator and a great operator. And so it's, you got to see the whole, the something like that as a whole. And if it's good, it makes everyone look good. Do you know what I mean? So it's, you, you want a good backup on the second unit and we had it. with that. Yeah. Well, at this point in your career, what's your what's your favorite part of the job? Favorite part of the job is their favorite part of the job. What makes what what what excites you? I unfavorite part is. I didn't ask you that. What excites you? Because you've done so much. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, I've been lucky really, because I've had some you know, really good ⁓ working relationships with ⁓ DOPs and directors ⁓ that ⁓ have included me in their collaboration. ⁓ So the exciting part for me is when that happens, and because the start of a job for an operator is not kind of... what equipment I'm going to use or anything like that. It's reading the script and kind of looking at what they want to shoot, their story, ⁓ how the story goes, what the ⁓ production's saying and how the director and the DOPC that being sort of ⁓ shot and At that point, they're giving you lots of references and it may be other films they've seen. mean, for instance, ⁓ my big relationship that I have with is with Seamus McGarvey and Joe Wright. ⁓ And Joe's always very generous with what he's thinking and ⁓ he'll give me references like on the Mussolini project that we've just done. wasn't just about ⁓ the type of film. So he was looking at, ⁓ you know, German expressionist cinema and Russian, you know, early Russian cinema. then he was all, but he was also referencing futurism, like an art movement. So all the angles that they had with Dutch angles and things. So I had something really to get my teeth into. And he was showing And the same with the music that he was using, because quite often you'll get given that, ⁓ well, with Joe, he'll give you a set of cans and you can listen to it while you're executing the shot and in key moments of the film. So all that sort of stuff for me as an operator is what's exciting. about the job, gets you kind of, I guess you just your juices going in here. Yeah, I can really make this work. And I've now got an idea of how it's got to be shot and what tools I'm going to use. And I can also feed that down to the crew, my gang behind me. ⁓ And they feel involved with the project. So I think all of that's the exciting side at the beginning of a job. And then obviously going down the line is just seeing it come to fruition. If you can make it happen. And then it's all that good stuff is distilled in amongst all of the kind of hardships of shooting over eight months or whatever and all the traveling and all the long hours and... all of that, it kind of makes it worthwhile. But if you don't get that backing and that collaboration, it's a long eight months sitting on set thinking, why are we doing something like this? I could do this much better or, you know, the team don't feel involved because they're not, they're not given a kind of motivation for being, for shooting. ⁓ in the way that we do. So yeah. That's great. Well, Pete, this has been fantastic. I feel like I could talk to you for another three and a half hours. So maybe we'll have to do this again. Well, we could go to the pub. Go to the pub. As you do one at the pub, actually, it probably be really good for 20 minutes and then it would start to... Anyway, I want to quickly again thank ⁓ the ACO and CVP for making this possible, for use of space. ⁓ I'm gonna leave you with the question I leave everybody with and you can sort of take us out with it Advice for someone getting into the business today on how to succeed or something Maybe that you wish you knew when you were starting out that you you now know. Yeah That's it's always difficult because everybody's route into the Film business the more I talk to people the more I realize it's come it can be completely different Yeah, so this is I guess this is just a proviso that is is my kind of experience and thought. One thing is to look at the long game because our careers aren't linear. There's many backward steps. mean, I've kind of always given example of I think one of the big shows that I first got was with Seamus McGarvey on, he asked for me to operate on Sahara, film called Sahara, which was a big show. and it was traveling through Morocco, Spain. It was just fantastic. We had all the toys. It a really good experience. Cut to the week after I get back from shooting there. I'm on a 16 hour pop promo at night, low budget, really sort of having to go some to convince myself I should have taken the job in the first place. So that's what I mean. kind of careers not linear, but then that's the way it goes. As going back to the quote about success as going from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm is you have to see the long game. I think a lot of people look at CVs. Certainly people might look at our CVs, experienced operators and go, wow, look at all of that that they've done. But there's been a lot of downtime in between. ⁓ and there's been a lot of shitty jobs, ⁓ concentrate on the positive, ⁓ relationships that you build and look at. It's coming up through the ranks. I'd look out for an operator to look at DOPs and directors who at the same stage of their career, you know, ⁓ who are, don't have, long lasting relationships with other operators or what have you, but who need somebody and you can identify them as a collaborator and sort of hang your hopes basically on working with them because that they will if you have a positive working relationship and they see you as a creative partner then they'll come back time and time again and your career could just basically be around one or two really positive relationships instead of just being part of the gang that gets their CV thrown in to a job which then becomes a lottery on who gets chosen, you know. So look to develop your own gang, if you like, your own tribe and see the long game ⁓ going forward. Also, I'd say develop a second skill or an interest. And if you can make money out of it, all the better. But even if it's just like a hobby that you enjoy, it will give you a kind of a way to forget what you're doing is your real job. So if it's like a sport or an activity or something that you can completely detach yourself from the worries that you may have about your main career, if you can find a kind of another interest, then that will give you a sort of perspective on when you do work, whatever it is, whether you do, I don't know, yoga. pilates or all those things or even just enjoy reading a book. You've just got to have another interest so that the job doesn't become the be all and end all of everything. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. We'll be back soon with another great episode. Don't forget to check us out on theop.io for all sorts of information on operating and storytelling. So thanks for listening and have a great day.