Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. Episode number 107.
“If you compete with other people, no one will help you. If you compete against yourself, everyone will help you.”, Robert Rodriguez.
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It’s the Indie Film Hustle Podcast where we show you how to survive and thrive as an Indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film business. And here’s your host Alex Ferrari.
Welcome my Indie film hustlers to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now today’s show is sponsored by Videoblocks. Now Videoblocks is a subscription based stock media company that gives you unlimited access to premium stock footage everyone could afford. If you’re looking for like extra exterior shots or things that you might want to incorporate into any of your projects whether it be a narrative, documentary, music videos, commercials. These guys got you covered. They have got unlimited daily downloads from a library of over one hundred fifteen thousand HD video clips as well as a huge selection of after effects templates for like opening credits, motion graphics, titles, company logos as well as motion backgrounds as well. It’s pretty amazing and on average a subscriber pay less than a dollar per download in a course of a year and the content does not get stale. They’re constantly adding new content to the library every month. So, it keeps, keeps it very very fresh and you always have something new to look forward to and everything you download is one hundred percent royalty free. Even if your subscription is canceled. You have unrestricted usage rights for anything you want to do including personal projects and commercial projects and you keep whatever you download and maintain the usage rights forever. Now Videoblocks is offering the tribe a yearly subscription for ninety nine bucks. That’s fifty bucks off the usual price tag. Just for you guys, just for the tribe. That’s less than ten bucks a month. So, to get this deal just head over to videoblocks.com/hustle that’s Videoblocks V I D E O Blocks.com/hustle for this exclusive offer and don’t forget to go to freefilmbook.com that’s freefilmbook.com to download your free filmmaking audio books from audible. Well guys before we get into today’s awesome episode. I have a treet for you guys.
Tomorrow, if you guys are following me on social media. You know tomorrow. Today is Monday October 17. Tomorrow the eighteenth is one we officially release the trailer for This is Meg. That’s right. I have been painstakingly in the kitchen cooking up this trailer for you guys and I am releasing it tomorrow but
because you guys are awesome.
And because you guys are faithful Indie Film Hustle tribe members, you get a pre sneak preview of the trailer before anybody else does. And all you’ve got to do is go over to thisismeg.com. That’s right. And I’ve also created a new website for thisismeg.com It is not the season spark page anymore. I’ve created a full blown website dedicated specifically for This is Meg and we’ll be adding more things coming up but the trailer lives there. So please
head over and check it out. Obviously this filmmaking podcast first but head over there and check it out. Let me know what you guys think. This is a long time coming. And I just again want to thank you guys all for being so supportive of this project and what I’m trying to do and I’m super excited to take guys on the journey with me and see where This is Meg is going to go. You know I have no idea. But I had a lot of fun doing it. I got a feature film in the can. I told you guys at beginning of the year I was going to have a feature film done. I had no idea how I was going to do it or what it was going to be about. But here you go. And that’s just a lesson you guys. You just have to kind of just put it out there and things will happen. You know and you have to work really hard and Robert Rodriguez said really wonderfully in a lecture he gave once that
“If you just sit there. Nothing will happen.” Nothing will happen at all if you just sit there and think about it or give yourself excuses why you’re not making a movie but if you just start working, start creating some momentum, some energy the universe conspires to help you. And it’s so so true. I sat on my ass giving excuses for a better part of twenty years. Going not this, I need this camera, I need this cast, I need this script, I need this this this this and I just said screw it. I’m going to do it and I did it and second I decided to start moving towards that goal. The universe and all these wonderful gifts, all these wonderful actors, locations, people everything just started coming to us and that journey ain’t over yet. There’s a lot more stuff coming. Same thing happen with Indie Film Hustle. I just decided to start doing it and so many amazing things have happened to me because of Indie Film Hustel. So, that’s a lesson we should all learn guys. Just got to get up and do as Nike says “Just Do It”.
All right. So, let’s get to today’s episode. By the way please let me know what you guys think. Post it up on. Please share it. Post it up on your social media. Do whatever you want. Please just get it out there as to many people as you can and I’ll let you know in the next coming months where it’s going to screen. Where we’re going to have a world premiere. We’ll see what festivals we get into and we’ll see what happens. So it could be as soon as January or it could be as soon as next summer. I have no idea. It all depends on the festivals and how they treat us and how they show us some love. So, we’ll see. We’ll see how it all goes guys. So, today’s episode guys is a special one because I have on the show today Egon Stephen Jr. Now Egon is a old old old friend of mine. He’s a cinematographer and pretty much a legend down in the South Florida Miami area. Grew up in the business. He’s a cinematographer and also owns the only now. house down in Miami and they got started in the fifty’s back with shows like Flipper and Sea Hunt. Back in the days and you got an eye shot some stuff together is my D. on a film called Sin that I did. Which of course you guys can go see at indiefilmhustle.com/amazon. For free on Amazon Prime.
You know I’m always promoting guys. Sorry but anyway. So, Egon I want to bring him on the show to talk about film and I know you Alex, what the hell are you talking about film’s like film’s dead. You just shot a movie, it’s not on film. I’m like well yeah. It’s true. I did shoot my movie without a film. Shot on a black magic on a digital. But you know what guys film is still a format that should be protected and believe it or not when I start doing research for
not only this podcast but the thing I’m talking about in a minute, I was shocked at how many movies and television shows are still shot on film. And not only just by like some of the nostalgic people but people who really want to shoot film and there’s a lack of knowledge and a lack of information about the actual filmmaking process. Actually what film is working with film, preparing film, what cameras to use, how to thread a mag, how to open it. You know how to do it to do all that loading unloading of a mag in a tent, in a bag. How to prep it for film lab. How, what lenses to use, what kind of lens to use. What kind of camera to use. Do you use SR2. Do you need Gen lock. Do you need Crystal sync. All this massive amount of information about shooting actual film is being lost and it’s not information that you can really find anywhere. I have not yet to find an online course anywhere in the world that teaches you about shooting Super sixteen millimeter or shooting film in general. It’s always very very expensive workshop somewhere and I decided like you know what I’m going to shoot a course on how to shoot Super sixteen millimeter properly. How to work with film, what film is, the basics of film, the fixes of camera real world like production stuff. How to get things ready to go into battle. What to do. The whole ball of wax and we created. I went down to Miami and shot with Egon a course called the Definitive Master Class on shooting Super sixteen millimeter film. Now we chose Super sixteen millimeter as opposed to thirty five millimeter because Super sixteen is where the independent filmmaker will probably go. It’s what they can afford and what makes the most sense and believe it or not. Shows like Walking Dead are shot on Super sixteen millimeter and we go into a lot of detail about why Super sixteen is so awesome as far as looks are concerned, a way you can get out of it and the quality you can get out of it. Right now you can get film from Kodak, in Kodak only to my knowledge. We talk about the different film stocks what you can get all that kind of stuff in this course but I want to bring you go on to talk about this in some detail and give away some major knowledge bombs on shooting Super sixteen and that it is a viable option for a lot of independent filmmakers because I know a lot of times being imposed so long. A lot of filmmakers will come in with their DSLR or their digital footage or a Red or an Alexa and I am like, Man I really want to make it can you give them more of a filmic look. Can you go back to a film, throw a film fest filter on it. Can you throw some grain on it or something like to emulate film. Well if you shoot film guys, you get that look already. So, it’s pretty remarkable that you could just shoot film and get it and it’s a completely different workflow from digital obviously. It’s a whole other language and you know Egon and I was sitting down and they were like you know this is a shame that nobody’s talking about this and Egon is in this business for pretty much for almost like forty years since he was a kid and he has so much knowledge. I’m like Egon, let me just fly down there and let’s just shoot this. So, we can give it out to the world and at least have a place where this information will stay relevant and give this information to people who want to shoot film because there’s just no information anywhere about it and it is a viable option and it will automatically add a tremendous amount of value to your movie because you shot it on film as opposed to shooting on a DSLR, shooting it on a digital format or something like that.
So, there’s a lot of wonderful things about digital and it is the future. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that film is going to take over again. Digital is the future but film should not be forgotten and it should still be allowed to be a viable format in future filmmaking. So J.J. Abrams of Star Wars stuff, Martin Scorsese Spielberg and even newer generation filmmakers like Sean Baker who won Sundance with Tangerine. I was just speaking to him the other day and his new movie shot on thirty five millimeter. And I was like wow you’re the one that brought the iPhone into the the mainstream about shooting films with the iPhone. He said I love that, iPhone. I think it was great for that movie but this movie called for a different look and I want to shoot film and I think film is something that should not be forgotten and lost and that is one of the reasons why I not only put this podcast together but I put this entire course together and at the end of this course I’m going to give you a special coupon to get a discount on the course and it is a little bit more pricey than my normal courses because guys it was a lot of work and when you will see it you understand. Oh yeah. We are going to be putting up some free samples of the course up on YouTube so you can take a look at it and also on the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com/107. So, I’ll put a couple of the lessons up so you can kind of see the quality of what we shot and ironically we shot the whole course on a digital power. But that’s just make sense but anyway. Guys so Egon is just an encyclopedic amount of information about filmmaking and he’s worked with insane directors like Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Bay, Joe Pitt and a ton. I mean just amazing amount of people that he’s worked with over the years and worked with some amazing DP’s like Paul Cameron who shooting Westworld right now and shot the Matrix movies. Among other ones. I mean the list. I was just shocked that his resume when I actually looked at it, it was pretty pretty insane. So, if you guys are even remotely interested in filmmaking and actually putting the word film back into filmmaking then enjoy my conversation with Egon Stephen JR.
Alex Ferrari: I would like to welcome to the show. Egon Stephen Jr, the legendary Egon Stephen Jr. How are you doing sir?
Egon Stephen Jr.: Alex. It’s great to see you. It’s great be here.
Alex Ferrari: Thanks man. Thank you so much. So, guys I don’t know if you know this mean. Egon go back better part of a decade now.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Egon. We have gone back Egon’s.
Alex Ferrari: Exactly. And if you guys have checked out any of our courses we’ve done together the Red course and the DSLR course you already know who Egon is but Egon is a legend down in the Miami area. His father started video tech and why am I explaining this. You should explain a little bit. How did you get into this crazy business.
Egon Stephen Jr.: How did I get into this crazy business. OK. So, I think if my father was a police officer I followed in his footsteps or a fireman but he came over from Germany and right when the war broke out and got relocated in station down in Miami and opened up a company at that time called Sony Tech which is in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and there wasn’t really anything happening. It was like swamp land down here, like a really weird place for but then actually different horror films came in like the creature from Black Lagoon, a T.V. series called Flipper and General Ban and then See Hunt and these shows were featuring Florida and Miami and my father was at the right place at the right time and then hedo it just repairing cameras and then before you know it invest into more equipment and then start being the supplier for a little bit of everything. I mean with lights, cameras, lenses and then helicopter mounts he was a good friend of Nelson Tyler from making the Tyler camera system mounts and we became a dealer and then shortly after that many years then we became an Panavision dealer and for like fifteen years we were vision rep down here and then it seems like at least most of the jobs that would come down to Florida. My father would have something to do with it or we’d have something to do with it. We do work on the crew or we would supply the equipment or do both.
Alex Ferrari: Now you. You’ve been you know because you’ve been basically on the front lines of every major production that went down in Miami over the last few decades. You kind of came up you know you worked on Vice, you worked on Bad Boys, you worked with some legendary directors. I know you told me a couple stories of Ridley and Tony Scott when you worked with them in the commercial world can you share some of those stories.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Well when I was in my junior year of high school I had the urge. I was working at. When I get home from school I would go over to my dad’s company and just kind of you know wander around and I was wandering around his company since I was a little kid. There is pictures of me you know like playing with the drill press and the shavings of the lathe machine and so it was like my playground. You know I didn’t really understand what I was around at the time because it just seemed like a lot of stuff in a long time I thought my dad was a truck driver because he had a lot of vehicles and you take me everywhere, he dropped off these trucks. I didn’t really understand fully to what was happening. So when I was younger. Like that. My father wanted me to get on some of the shows because you know to give me a taste of being in the field not just being in a shop and I didn’t have a union card that was a big deal. I mean the time you know unions and we had at Chicago in that time it was a local 666 the Demon. But it’s you couldn’t go on again show unless you were union so they also had a restriction on what age you were to come in the union. You couldn’t just get in there at sixteen years old and that’s kind of like what my age was. But they pulled some strings and got me to at least be able to take the test and then that time it was a written test and I actually hands on test but since I worked at the rental house. I was the one setting up all the equipment and it was like I already knew the names of everything and how to put it together but I didn’t know the practical application of these tools. I only knew like this is what this goes and the names and the pieces of it but to use it in the field that was all new stuff that had to be learned. So they I was sponsored actually from Steve Poster who is no, you know he is a legend himself and he was doing some jobs down here and the first jobs I ever worked on was spring break. And it was ironic because you know I’m a kid, I just walk on the set. It was like from being in a shop. It was like a whole new world. I mean there were so many people and there was people doing this and that and they all had a routine, they were all like the worker bees and I’m like whoa. I got a lot to learn. So, I was like the cam I was doing Slate. You know the time we were doing all film. So it was like I started doing this Slate and running magazine cases back and forth the set and these different little jobs I was doing and then they finally said well Max, we’re like OK good. So, I got that down and became a second assistant and loaded mags for many many years on many many shows. I loaded mags on parenthood and and you know every day having lunch with Ron and his family is really really great experience because I’ve learned a lot.
Alex Ferrari: How was you? How was Ron to work with? Here is just the nicest man in the world.
Egon Stephen Jr.: He’s so nice. There’s no stress on the set that you would normally have on another jobs. I mean he’s very thorough. I mean the guys you know he is a legend. I mean it’s like he does it. He does it the right way, he does it perfect, he surround himself with all the most talented people when they all of the same type of demeanor so you actually get a lot of things. A lot of good things done, a lot of good moments and the actors love it. It was a really nice experience because what it provided me an opportunity of working in this business is when you never know what the phone call is going to be for and when you’re a camera assistant. They always need a camera assistant. You know whether it’s a motor or a first assistant on any job so that you know you get a phone call, so you’re available for these days. I’m like. Sure. Let me make sure I get out of school or my dad will let me go and when is the call time they will say at all night. So, it’s like wow I was the introduction to, you guys going to shoot into the sun comes up and that wasn’t what I was used to either. It was like this is all, is all a learning curve but I got to meet fantastic people and especially at some point in their career that they were just normal people you know they were just they were just blow. Being that today they’re ASE cameramen, they’re DGA directors, they’re owners of different companies and you remember when they walked in the door. My dad’s company to just want to learn the business and work is like a streeping the floor. You know give me a job, then work in practice, let me let me do something like that later on many many years later they are somebody that is really big or that I would get the chance of working with somebody that I admired for many many years and it was like wow, what an opportunity. I would work it even if I didn’t get paid. You know I mean it was like that kind.
Alex Ferrari: How was the stores working with and Tony?
Egon Stephen Jr.: They are masters. I mean we were doing commercials. I mean we’re doing commercials and that kind of thing and it was a fashion also along with it so they were meticulous and very creative. I mean they’re it’s something that I would love to one day be at their level because they you know they figure everything out and then have plans and alter plans and all the changes and they know technically because a lot of times in your conversation you work with a crew and you work with somebody they might not know the system very well but they still know how to be there at the job that they want to be and they want to do and you rarely find somebody that knows your job and actually can do your job better than you. Sometimes you’re like wow I didn’t even know that. One time I had worked a lot with Burt Reynolds and because he had a place up here in Jupiter and still does and and he was you know he was still doing commercials in little movies and things like that and and we got to be actually you know speaking terms and friends and one time I was on the top of a eighteen wheeler doing one of his movies and my assistant I was the first and my second assistant wasn’t up on the top of the truck to do the slate because we’re doing film and sound and the like and stuff and Burt goes to grab my slate because I had the slate there I’m like no Burt and he’s like look kid. I know what I’m doing and he gives, he says where’s the mouse and he even knew the name of it which is a thing we call for writing the marker on the slate with a little puffy thing on the back and he goes what’s the scene number and I give it to him he does it all there. He puts it up perfectly where supposed to be. Says it like you were as an assistant saying take one camera marker and hit it and hand it back to me and I was like holy shit. I just like you are an actor.
Alex Ferrari: Burt Reynolds was the biggest movie star in the world for many years. I’m sure he’s done a couple things. I’m sure if you give Tom Cruise a slate he might know what to say to.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Well over the years I developed a relationship with him that he always recognized me and remember me. He come over and talk to me, he knew my dad which is cool and we would just talk about cars and other things or movies or things he’s done and he was always really friendly and very very open to me and I had a mistake on the set happen and you know because he was the first assistant when you finally get to that level, when you work up the ladder of because I did it the slow way. These days people don’t do that. They don’t go and be a trainee then clapper loader then a second then first then an operator then a second unit DP and then finally calling yourself a DP. It takes years, twenty years to climb up that long ladder and get to that place that you could actually. It’s not just you say I’m this position. The people around you have to respect and understand that you can do that job and then they give you a call because I call myself a director and they will they want to hire me. So they don’t have anything around.
Alex Ferrari: But so then you mean you can’t just buy a Red camera, you are not an automatic DP because you bought a red camera.
Egon Stephen Jr.: These days you can. Yes. In my day when you were a certain part of camera department. You had things you can and can’t do. Some things was it you will not ever load, the second assistant will not put the magazine on the camera and threaten. They will hand you the magazine but they won’t do that part unless you felt it was you know a circumstance you had to and you knew they could do it because when you’re putting up, you’re threading up a camera they’ll film. If you get nervous, if you mess up, you can tear that perfect and then delay a while everybody is waiting for you to say camera is ready. You could mess it up and then you know be really stupid so it’s a lot of pressure at that moment of reload. So, I wanted to say the story was. So, I’ve been working for many jobs and now I’m one of these jobs and I think it was the maddening or the mad from field it was one of his movies he was directing and being in it is about kids and baseball and stuff and there was a scene that required a sort of like a little fight scene and then Burt was is really good at stunts and he knows the routine, he’s a tough guy and he’s like I can do anything. And now and he’s done everything. He was going to do this controlled fall down these bleachers and he you know he went into the wardrobe and got his you know all you saw his pads that he’s used for like thirty years and he put his knee pads, on his elbow pads and he had a little skeleton protection underneath his clothing. So, right before all that happened. The camera that I was working on, we were using a steady cam and it was a film camera. So, unbeknown to me my second assistant came over and had a magazine to put on to the study cam and I said no just put it off to the side, I will thread it but instead of putting on the side he put it on the camera. So, I’m not going to bitch about that I was like OK it’s on. So, I assume that it’s threaded you know and it’s on the camera because you wouldn’t put a bag in that thread it right. So ofcourse the sun is dropping down and we’ve got this magic hour moment to do this stunt with Burt doing it himself and falling down these bleachers on at Magic Hour exactly. So, we’ve got three cameras, it’s all a pan of vision job you know so we got the pen of flex, I think we had a platinum and we had the forty foot mag on the back. So, of course we go from regular studio mode on sticks that we do in these shots to OK set a camera and we’re strapping it up. I’m putting the pressed in and getting the focus more and all the other things and you know lighting it all up in the right filter combination and we’re all like rushing rushing rushing. OK we do the CD dialogue and he goes down and he has this you know he actually does this emotional scene and even started to like a little teary eyed because he was you know acting really well and then he walks off and we pan off to the sunset. Beautiful cut. Great. Check the gate. So, I go and open up the camera. The film is not threaded in the camera. On the pan of flex you have contacts on the magazines and it has a wind up motor that’s always on and when you turn it on. It takes up so the film did go through to the other side but never through the gate to be exposed. So, we were looking at it thinking we were rolling it so that seeing was you know two hundred twelve feet or something like that and it wasn’t exposed to and control feet so of course you know when Burke did the movie he banged himself a little bit. So, he kind of walked off the field like you know the Libby thing and I had to go. So, I had to run over and tell Nick McLean who was the DP I said Nick Nick Nick we have a big big big big big problem but nobody go away. Look the film didn’t go through the cameras. He said what? It was on it but it didn’t go through the and I told them. Well you better go tell Burt that.
Alex Ferrari: Because he’s like I’m not going to tell Burt that
Egon Stephen Jr.: I didn’t go there you could tell her. Oh I got it but we don’t have that scene. We don’t have it all. Because you better hurry then. So, he is already trying to walk off the field and we’re almost like you know they were calling OK we’re done. You know hey a great day. You know kind of thing and I had to run over. This around Burt we have a major problem, he goes what and he looks at me and he gave me that thousand yard stare and I said we had a technical problem, the magazine was put on the camera and it wasn’t threaded through so we didn’t have anything exposed.
Alex Ferrari: What he did?
Egon Stephen Jr.: He just stared at me for about a couple of moments without even moving his body without breathing and then since he was also directing this job. It had to be I said But right now we don’t have shot at all. It’s we don’t have. Tell you know. It’s going to be in dailies it’s not there. We don’t have it. I’m telling you right now. I don’t know what happened but we’re losing the light and I’ll figure it out later. And he turned away and got mad a little bit of course and then went to go redo the scene and yelled OK right back. A guy does again. I’m like what what what and it’s like my head’s down. Now I’m saying to myself shit. OK it’s wide open. We don’t even have the lights out, the sun’s almost gone. My focus and depth of field is now, it really really critical and I don’t want anything else to happen so I double check even the camera and I checked the gate make sure we’re good. We’re good and did as fast as I could. Take yes to fall down, the thing into the stunt again. Any kind of hurt himself. The first time a little bit but I think the second time he kind of hurt himself there again. And then he came up to me and he ripped off his pads he goes. Tell me you got that and I and I went on I check that. Yeah it gets good and he goes. Later on we have to talk and then he says I got a major guy hating me.
Alex Ferrari: You’re going to the principal’s office.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Yes. I’m going to get, I mean addled and you know we met later on and he gave me the Father the Son kind of talk about you know responsibilities and consequences and then said I hope you don’t ever have that happen again especially on my job and I said I go but I do thank you for telling me before. I had to find out the next day
Alex Ferrari: Of course. They would have to have done the entire scene.
Egon Stephen Jr.: It was actually I think a little prettier because it was more golden at the time you know.
Alex Ferrari: Sure it was Egon. Sure.
Egon Stephen Jr.: You have things like that happen where you have a technical problem. The reason why these things happen is in these days and age you have digital cameras, you have a lot less of a learning curve to know how to play with it. You don’t have the experience of the Masters on how to create something with light shadow and have it to do it on film but you can still get good images and people get great stuff and I think that the margin of major mistakes is gotten smaller so it’s easier for people to just pick up a camera and shoot with it and not have issues like focus or depth or glass come back.
Alex Ferrari: From somebody for somebody who just DP their first feature film I can guarantee you that’s the case because if I would have had to shoot This is Meg on film. I would have never done it but because there’s so much latitude with these cameras. It’s different now. The main reason I brought you on the show Egon was you talk a lot about mags and film I wanted to talk about film. And I was specifically like sixteen and Super sixteen millimeter film and you know why in God’s green earth are people still shooting on film in today’s digital world. Can you give me an explanation?
Egon Stephen Jr.: I think that medium is like almost like talking about . I kind of feel where I just saw it recently on film and I’m looking at the screen and I went. What is it that I like about what I’m seeing, I can’t place my finger on it but I know it’s not any of the digital camera looks that I am familiar with on. It’s not an Alexa. It’s not a Sony something, it’s not a RED. It was like I don’t know. And then of course afterwards when I look more detail than said well it’s film. it’s film that’s there’s something I don’t know I guess in human nature or the way that your mind captures what you’re seeing sometimes if you do it correctly. It gives you more of what I think your memories are like and more like bring you back to an emotion when you can watch something you get that show up at the back of your spine that little goose bumps on that you get from something that happens in the moment and the actor or a scene happens. I think that it achieved it’s moment to act the audience.
Alex Ferrari: Is this something, it’s just because it’s an organic thing. Is it? Because I mean I’ve shot thirty-five, I have shot a ton of film in my career and I’ve also shot a ton of digital in my career and there is something about film. I’m not sure if that’s in the style show for me and you because it’s our generation we grew up with film. Do kids who are in their teens now who really don’t know the difference or didn’t grow up with the film or didn’t grow up with not home video home films that actual project on the wall and things like Super eight or sixteen like that. So, is it nostalgic thing with our generation and beyond. Or is there actually something organic that it touches you to a level.
Egon Stephen Jr.: I do feel something organic is when I take my kids who are like eighteen years old and younger people like in their twenty’s and assume down to show something I say, so what do you see here. What do you go on and this looks great. I love it. I don’t know and their with a side by side comparison of something from film or from high end digital. They don’t know why but they say it has a nice or something that it factor that little thing you want to put your finger on it. I don’t know if it’s a tonal values or the way it falls off or the way makes me feel like it’s more like I said in my mind and my memory of something.
Alex Ferrari: It’s just there is something, there is something really magical about film and now and by the way a lot of people now are shooting more and more film than they ever have in the past probably five to ten years because a lot of people are going back to shooting super sixteen specifically like Walking Dead is shot on Super sixteen. The movie the Oscar nominated movie Carol just got shot. West World, HBO’s West World shot on film. There are so many.
Egon Stephen Jr.: So the DP West World is one of my favorite people. He did gone in sixty seconds swordfish . He works with here.
Alex Ferrari: He’s a very big big big DP.
Egon Stephen Jr.: OK when I met Paul. Paul was a camera operator in a music video
and I was a camera assistant and we kind of hit it off because I was working at that time you know you do like little weird stints of just doing movies and then you do a music video and then get and then do like concert after concert because when I was growing up, it became the eighty’s and you know you doing it. You’re doing a couple of city tours and you’re around a lot of different people. You’ve got fifteen twenty thirty cameras, Super sixteen cameras that would be filming concerts and I did. I think it was forty or fifty cameras at Yankee Stadium for Billy Joel back in the day and there was all film film Sixteen, Super sixteen. And Paul was from a group that was the main mentor was Tony Mitchell. Tony Mitchell and and you had Romeo to Ronnie and you had Cameron, you had Eddie Stevens and these guys were like this click that really nailed it. They were like on that you know giving at least concerts and music video imagery that people were really adapting to and I got to be in the flight seat with them. I was their wing man. I was the camera assistant pulling focus under them and then if you pull that off. They would hire you on a big commercial or movie or something and then when I see Paul from even when I was just back pulling focus days, he was from you know he has a beautiful eye and he knows technically like I said everything and everything about your job. He’s known, he knows it better than you do and he’ll and he know how long something takes and he also knows how to create this imagery that you know when I’ve seen. There’s very few times I’m on set working with somebody that when I see what they do out of nothing and they make this lighting in the camera and everything and in the positions I go and it’s really really cool and I wish. I’m going to remember this. So one day if I ever get a chance. I’m going to do it kind of like that and they were like my as a first you learn under these people that have all these different experiences that you can learn from. I mean. And of course if you don’t mess up you could do more work with them and that at their careers because Tony and was working with with Paul way back in the beginning. I kind of you know I did, if I try to remember every top guy I mean I worked with I worked with Derrius Wilkie on his first movie in the United States that I got fired off. The first time ever got fired off the job and it was before he went on to do you know. Dark City and the Crow and the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Alex Ferrari: What do you mean the guy who did the Dark City also did the Crow.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Yeah.
Alex Ferrari: I didn’t know that it was the same D.P. because they both have a very unique. The Crow was gorgeous. I love the look of the Crow.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Well he shot that in film that was using daylight stock at night as a fifty stock at night so in order to get an exposure you have to light it like insane with big light, big guns and anything that didn’t have light on it went black obvious because it had no latitude.
Alex Ferrari: So, that’s a perfect segue. Can you talk a little bit about the difference of film stocks and what you can get with different films stocks just a slight kind of overview on today.
Egon Stephen Jr.: I would say that the film stock is like the idea of lots today. I mean there it would be that if you in the day obviously, you had to go and process the film that night and then you would see it the next day you wouldn’t see it right away. You’d see the video assist on low rent standard def for eighty lines of black and white video. And hope it’s going to be nice but the skill of working on set with Kodak film or Fujifilm ARAC for the time and then going into the lab and seeing the processing and seeing that everything where it goes from the moment you put in the magazine to the time you see it on the screen. The chemical process is happening that’s another thing that, it’s a unique that when you said what’s that thing about. It’s like cooking you know you’ve got to strip the silver or you keep the silver. You know bleach bypass or any of these little effects that you would do to create a look was done with how long it stays in the bath, what chemicals you use, what things would in pants, the different layers of the colors in the film and then it would get stripped off and you’d have this you know it’s like time like you how you. You would only know that by a lot of practice. With the medium. So, a guy can go out there and can say all right we’re going to be out sunny Miami and really no clouds and super sunny, will use daylight you know and if you’re going to get some type of overcast you would use A S A 250 daylight and they would still blend well but there would be certain some stocks that you wouldn’t want to mix with it because their characteristics would be so.
Alex Ferrari: Like in today’s world. It’s all DI and all color grade and things like that where before you had to do it all in the cam all in the in the lab but today’s world though for people listening you can shoot film and every person who shoots film color grades digitally now. I mean everything gets transferred digitally. And then you can do all. So, you still can do some of the magic in the lab and you could do some crazy things in the lab to do stuff to the negative then bring it into color grading and do things in color grading off of that negative that you could not achieve digitally alone. There’s certain things that you can do like a bleach bypass. You can kind of get close to it but it’s not going to be Saving Private Ryan or using cross processing or shooting reversal stock which I used to love shoot reversal stock if anybody ever has seen. If anyone have ever seen a music video from the ninety’s. That’s all they frickin shoot with a reversal stock and they jacked up the colors and stuff like that in a way that digital alone can’t really achieve as well. It’s just a different thing. And I always look at film kind of like slow cooking as a host to show. You can get a good meal fast food, you go over to Chipotle. For people who don’t know it’s kind of like because that’s a Miami thing but it’s like a fast food but it’s kind of like casual fast. Kind of Capote layer something like that but with Cuban food and so you can have a good meal. It’s tasty and it’s great and it’s more than acceptable and in many ways it’s really really really good. It might get you fat but the pens are what you eat but if you slow cook the same meal, have a grandma make it for you and she takes her time and all that. That’s what shooting film is sometimes. So it’s almost like, it’s like a craft you’re being a craftsman in a sense. What’s the artisan that’s the word. You’re being almost an artist with creating images with film and it is a very magical thing and it’s become much more affordable nowadays.
Egon Stephen Jr.: The only thing I see is that there is a gap now because back when the film was filmed somebody would come into my shop and say can I enter and can you teach me how to load mags or teach me some like that. It would be a common thing you hear something go work on teach you like that. Now there’s nobody around that teaches that and that’s not something that even schools are teaching that and their rental houses that still have film cameras that still even have all those options of knowing that you have to have two hundred foot, four hundred foot, thousand foot, twelve hundred foot magazines whether they’re back loaded or hand-held bags or lightweight mags or steady cam mags like all that information is only for the people that have done it and they’re getting older. I mean I’m getting up there in some years I mean I’m anymore but I don’t see that anybody that’s from the younger generation unless they have some type of an avenue to learn that. It’s going to be a lost art. There’s going to be I mean the more that somebody doesn’t keep it in their place or have it available. It’s going to be like a rare find and you have to go up to the mountain and talk to the wizard and know how to do this.
Alex Ferrari: Well that’s I think one of the reasons why you and I sat down and said like you know when we started putting courses together, we both kind of came up with like hey why don’t we do a Super sixteen millimeter course because not a lot of people well excuse me. Nobody I still can’t find anything online. There is no online course teaching really teaching Super sixteen millimeter. How to actually shoot it that all the knowledge of every every aspect of it from someone who has actually done it and you’re right. Not even schools are teaching sixteen as much anymore. I mean you know maybe New York Film Academy I think may still teaches some sixteen but they kind of just skip right over and just jump over to the RED or the Alexa. Or the black magic and they don’t spend a lot of time on it but it’s something that needs to be taught and that’s why you and I kind of put that whole course together.
Egon Stephen Jr.: And Kodak if they felt that too. They have been doing their own little workshops that introduction to that and there are events fill up a lot because some of the people coming to them are union people and they’re saying well I got a call saying are you available for these jobs. You say yes and they said OK are you do know that we’re shooting this in either Super sixteen or anamorphic or thirty five. So, you’re good with that right. And they are like I haven’t worked with that and they said thank you. And they hang up and they go to the next guy. I didn’t learn that.
Alex Ferrari: Well I mean perfect example HBO’s West World. It’s a monster show.
Egon Stephen Jr.: I watched it and it was like amazing. I was stunned. I was looking at that on my screen eighteen inch screen TV go like whoa I love the way this looks.
Alex Ferrari: Yeah I mean you’ve got West World, you’ve got American Horror Story still shot on Super sixteen, Gotham was shot on Super sixteen.
Egon Stephen Jr.: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO but it’s a good look.
Alex Ferrari: But The Walking Dead is shot on Super sixteen. There is ton of specifically television. A lot of television but also I mean some major, a lot of major motion picture Star Wars was shot on Super sixteen. All the Star Wars are being shot now on thirty five or super thirty five and anything Christopher Nolan does a shot on thirty five, not IMAX. So, film is not dead. I know a lot of people think it is but it’s not and it’s still you know is it ever going to be the main thing anymore, no it won’t. But it should be not something that dies. I think that’s the big thing. I think it should be an option for filmmakers and storytellers and image makers to have that filmmaking option and actual be a film. Put the film back into filmmaking. You know which is something that people have forgotten you know we say film and we say I am going to make that film. I’m like no you going to go make a digital product you know. I’m a filmmaker. I’m like you’re not, you’re an image maker, you’re content creator. You’re not a filmmaker because you’re not making things with film. So that’s that whole thing. So, can you talk about I know we talk about sixteen and Super sixteen. Can you tell the audience what the difference between the two are.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Well the day they were, there was regular sixteen and you had purse on both sides of the frame and they needed. They wanted to see if they can put more image onto that film and in order to do that. They said OK get rid of one set a purse. We could shift over to the right and we could actually make it so that we would have a sixteen by nine or a two three five kind of feeling to it on sixteen and what they did is they actually figured out on the camera how to take the mount and flip it that would bring you over it just a little bit that you needed to take care of that ad in the Super sixteen Film was only perfed on one side. Same thing happened with the regular thirty five and Super thirty five in order to do that they had to try to squeeze stuff for the base maintained both first they were able to adapt one eighty degree mout on the cameras that could shift you and also they would also do that on the bottom of the camera for the base plate to line up all the rods and the fall the focus and the match box. Everything had to be shifted over a little bit. And it would give you more landscape, more real estate to put your imagery on.
Alex Ferrari: Right to give you more of that sixteen by nine look which everybody was looking for because remember the olden days obviously was four by three and that’s what sixteen was four by three.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Well those old and olden days even had you know two perf tennis go. That was all the spaghetti Westerns and a lot of the popular movies of our past was used in that format that was more than a sixteen by nine you know looking you’re looking at an anamorphic image with spherical lenses instead of being an anamorphic lenses. So, you’d optically change it when you have projected.
Alex Ferrari: Now what would be the top three tips you would give somebody going on shooting film for the first time on location.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Have somebody in your pocket that you can call for her. If you get in trouble do a lot of homework. Test. In my days we would you know take a hundred foot or two hundred feet of some film and we would test it. We test it with lights and altitude and then different things just like you would do now that I think the process of testing your tools or preparing them before you go out and use them has really become a little relaxed. I mean normally you’d have like two weeks to prep a show and you would be doing you know days of different types of tests and stuff and now sometimes you get two days and you don’t feel all that because there’s not that demand to actually put it through those riggers and the cameras are different than the film cameras will work. So, I would say you’d want to have at least some hands on experience with it even if it’s an environment that is very calm and relaxed so you can just mess up you know I would say also you have to have a light meter. That’s another thing that people don’t realize is you know light meters still work today. They measure light so and they’re the sensors are doing it all automatically and that kind of thing but still if you’re going to do that you need to have a concept of light and how to create a look with shadow and not just. You know people think if I take a light I put over the camera and I bang it into something you’re lit. Well if you’re doing news footage you’re lit. Yes but if you’re trying to create an emotion, a feel or something. The type of light, the color of light, the unit of light how you kind of place it and do it is the molding of the scene that you’re doing and to achieve that you need a meter. So you would probably want to you know have some people at least that once or twice to give you a little help.
Alex Ferrari: Yeah it was perfect example. I was working on a project that was shot on Super sixteen and the filmmaker found somebody who said that they can do it and they sent it to me and it was literally grain central like the grain was as big as boulders and it was just shot horribly bad not because the lighting particularly, it was just the exposure was right and it was just super super super grainy so they were like hey you know what can we do. I’m like there’s not a whole lot we can do. Man you mean these grains are size and literally the size of boulders and thats the thing that people have to understand when they are shooting film. It is not nearly as forgiving as digital.
Egon Stephen Jr.: No. That was why you went to school and you learn art. It was an art thing. It wasn’t just hey I go out I shoot you know concerts or you know weddings and that. No, we’re really doing this as an art, you are learning your I mean that the things that I would read is always trade magazines or articles about the people they admired and I look up to that they’re giving it explanations of how they did something or calling them up and saying hey I just watch what you did. How did you do this in the scene because I’m amazed. I can’t figure it out and you talked about it and that’s what you kind of did to improve on and people would actually say to you. Hey I want my Pepsi commercial the look like this scene of this movie from this particular team and you’d be like OK now you have to somehow not have been on that last job create that look with the experience level that you have.
Alex Ferrari: Or trying to find it in the Americans
Egon Stephen Jr.: They used lightning strikes and they use.
Alex Ferrari: Yeah like I actually studied the one from Condi who did a Seven and a Seven was such a kind of revolutionary way it was shot. You know with the whole silver bath and you know and the darks went so dark and this is at the time when digital was not around yet and I just studied it. I just bought. I love collecting Stanley Kubrick’s American cinematographers. So, I got the shining just for fun just to see because I was one of the first times I used that the first one of the first times . But yeah that’s how you would do it but film is can be forgiving if you choose the right stock and light in the proper way. So, like the vission stocks those Kodak vision stocks which are basically what is left now is like it’s all vision stock if I’m not mistaken or there is another other kinds of Kodak stock now as well.
Egon Stephen Jr.: I believe that that’s where the best of having learned over all those years of working with film and latitude is that they’ve got to I mean they kind of point but they were the exotic Stock. When we would do our job we get a call. I mean it was specially a film job obviously. You were called because they knew you could pull that off. You were called because they knew you had skills that you had skills more than they did and they watched you on the set. They knew that you would have it and when you say that the margin of error. It’s huge. But once you know how to do it. It’s a piece of cake. It’s actually believe it or not and I love the digital cameras these days but me and a camera and a magazine and the battery. I could go anywhere in the world and do my thing with a very low impact of having to be reliant on cables and batteries and power. I mean in my day a battery, a twelve twenty four volt battery, thirteen amp power battery can last you all day.
Alex Ferrari: You’re literally so much like running around with it a camcorder.
Egon Stephen Jr.: If you knew your film, you knew your latitude, it was about actually taking the moment of the day if you didn’t have lights to shoot. I worked with many people from Europe when they do commercials and then when the sun got to about eleven almost noon we wouldn’t shoot. We would not shoot for like three hours and we sit around there drink wine and tell stories in the bread and we believe what we doing is like no. It is not good to shoot yet and it was OK and then there would be time to be like they would kick into action and everything would be great but you know that’s kind of like the impact or the footprint. So I say that you show up with a digital camera these days when you scenes of these cameras. You know you goy Alexa with.
Alex Ferrari: Forty five thousand cables. You need fifteen people just to turn the damn thing on.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Is your camera in there somewhere because you just look and say it looks like alien with spaghetti stuff and of course you’ve got little cables that go weird and little other bugs, electronic bugs which I know everybody has a computer and you know.
Alex Ferrari: Like to call them gremlins.
Egon Stephen Jr.: Gremlins bugs. Incompatibilities of things and you go and why is that not playing like, I’m supposed to be at this frame rate and it’s not listening or it’s not.
Alex Ferrari: I don’t have the latest firmware so it’s not hooking up
Egon Stephen Jr.: You are three bills back that’s a problem.
Alex Ferrari: So, this is a thing that you do. That’s one of the big plusses you have to worry about when shooting Super sixteen or shooting film is that film is film it’s been film for the last hundred twenty years. There is no firmware update for it.
Egon Stephen Jr.: No and that’s what I mean Sue is like the conditions of being somewhere very hot and some were very cold or switching between them. Electronic devices don’t like it and also I had different times were explosions or different types of pyros or different types of percussion of things would from the explosion, the electromagnetic whatever field of whatever is happening to it. It made the camera glitch and often stop doing something I was like Well now come on what they put film cameras up in space and on the rockets and it didn’t have a problem and you know why we did the T.V. show Miami Vice. I was a first time actually pulling focus on my device and I came out one night and the camera operator looked at me goes. You have been doing this very long. Have you? And I said look I said I work it. You know Bob I go Yeah you know it all. Well but have you pulled focus on a Lamborghini coming out of nowhere down ninety five at night at hundred miles an hour. I said No. So you go. All right. And we’re on a three hundred millimeter and I go oh can’t be any more hard wired up another three hundred. So, he says OK I’m going to give you a focus mark here here and here and the rest of it is up to you and I was like this was now that moment that I felt I could do this, I could do this and you know would say OK send the car and the thing comes and I am Oh and . I am not so sure. OK. Now tell him do it again we do it take two and they don’t want to take three and I felt not so good on take two but you had to rely on your camera operator and say. Did I get it or buzz it and he goes now I think that when you got and we’d see the next day in dailies it was. But the way I see people pull focus these days like you know especially people who have their own camera. They’re just looking off the modern and pulling focus off of that and that was like a taboo you never look at model. One you never had wanted to later on and the other one was old fashioned way of running a tape measure and then learning distances and then just floating with it knowing your lenses. So the time that you have to look at a modern and react to pulling focus you’re always going to be behind because you’re never going to be right on the timing that makes a move in the shot and the whole the dolly grip and the operator and everybody that does this little dance to make a move when they all do it correctly. It’s magic. When you don’t you see things that are anomalies and these days you don’t, they’re not really learning that way you know like a lot of operators you know I’m sure the new operators when they see one of my gear heads they think it’s an alien. They don’t know what it is like how do you do that. I can’t tilt and turn and I do this because I mean that you couldn’t get as an operator on any show. If you can operate the wheels and it would be like that. That’s every A camera at least in my day you had gear head. And they would not give you the gear head on second unit the O’Connor had or something but you had a No, I mean you had wheels and then if you do anything that was remote head, crane something like that it was wheels. Later on they came with a joystick. And if you’ve learned with the wheels the joystick makes you look.
