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[00:00:00] Rob Bredow: through music, I, uh, discovered editing. And I was an editor for seven years at PBS in L. A. And then, all of a sudden, I found myself in the middle of a digital revolution in the 80s, a long time ago.

Welcome to the Lighter Darker podcast, where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling. Thank you for joining us. This is episode 12 of 20 that we have planned for season one, and we release every other Tuesday. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm here with my co host as always, Todd.

[00:00:35] Todd Vaziri: Hey, I'm Todd Vaziri, Compositing Supervisor and Artist at ILM.

[00:00:39] Rob Bredow: And our producer, Jenny.

[00:00:41] Jenny Ely: Hi, Jenny Ely, Production Manager at ILM.

[00:00:43] Rob Bredow: And I'm Rob Bredow, chief creative officer of ILM and SVP of creative innovation at Lucasfilm. And we all work together at ILM on visual effects and animation and immersive entertainment. And today we are welcoming three supervisors to join the show. Between them, they've [00:01:00] shaped some of the most visually stunning films of recent memory, right? Uh, The Irishman. Uh, Ready Player One, Avengers Infinity War, Ahsoka. Uh, so we're really going to get to talk with them, take us behind the curtain, right? The people who help make the impossible possible. And all three of them are nominated for Oscars this year for best visual effects. So it's very, very fun and fun to celebrate together with you.

So first, and let me welcome Nelson Sepulveda Fauser. He joins us from Sydney. He most recently worked as visual effects supervisor on the Star Wars series, Ahsoka and the Oscar nominated Martin Scorsese film, The Irishman he's here today as ILM's visual effects supervisor, where he has been redefining terror in the Oscar nominated film for best visual effects.

Alien Romulus. Welcome Nelson.

[00:01:46] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Greetings from the future.

[00:01:48] Rob Bredow: Yes. Five hours ahead of us and a day.

[00:01:51] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: and a day to

[00:01:52] Rob Bredow: Uh, Pablo Hellman has brought his expertise to a lot of films, including Killers of the Flower Moon, The Fablemans, and he [00:02:00] has served as the production visual effects supervisor on the breathtaking and Oscar nominated Wicked. Welcome Pablo. And also, nominated for his work on Wicked, we welcome animation supervisor, David Shirk. Previously, David supervised the Star Wars series, Obi Wan Kenobi. Uh, award winning films such as Mank and Ready Player One. So, welcome David to the podcast.

[00:02:24] David Shirk: Hello, good to be here.

[00:02:26] Rob Bredow: between the three of them, decades of, of time at ILM, uh, innovation in visual effects and animation. So, this is gonna be really fun to dive into. Well, first a question from the mailbag, and then we're gonna talk a lot about Alien, Romulus, and Wicked today on the show. So, this'll be really fun. Uh, Jenny, do you wanna get us started with our first question?

[00:02:45] Jenny Ely: Yes, our first question is from Matt Grant, and Matt asks, Between someone who is entirely self taught and someone with a college education that is specific to the industry, how much weight does the latter have in getting you an interview? [00:03:00] Does formal education matter for visual effects these days in the way that it does for other industries?

[00:03:05] Rob Bredow: is going to be interesting because all of us started in an era that's different than today. So today's answer is a little different than it was when we were getting started. But Todd, what is your initial thought here?

[00:03:15] Todd Vaziri: I mean, like, one of the themes that we talk about a lot on this show is that, you know, in terms of getting into Hollywood or visual effects at all, that there's, there's no one story. Uh, there's no one story that anybody has, There's no one path. And that may be, there may be, suggested workflows, there's suggested paths for other industries, education is definitely a part of that. Uh, Hollywood, um, maybe not so much. I mean, the education part of education is important, meaning like if you wanted to get a film degree or computer science degree or art degrees, things like that. I don't know. I've worked with everybody around this, uh, in this call for quite some time. I don't, I don't know where any of you went to school or [00:04:00] like

that got you the interview or something.

particularly for visual effects, you know, the, the real, the resume, that, that stuff is primary. That's at least from my perspective.

[00:04:12] Rob Bredow exactly. And it's been a little while, um, Pablo, when you got your start, was that more through schooling or more through, practical experience?

[00:04:19] Pablo Helman: Well I'm the perfect example of I don't know how I got here kind of a thing. Uh, because I started a long time ago. I'm probably the oldest one over here. And, uh, um, I, uh, study music at UCLA. I have a degree in music composition. And I have a master's in educational technology. Um, there was a time in my life when I used to uplink to satellites, uh, you know, uh, shows and things like that. Um, so, um, and, but then somehow, uh,

[00:04:48]: through music, I, uh, discovered editing. And I was an editor for seven years at PBS in L. A. And then, all of a sudden, I found myself in the middle of a, uh, you [00:05:00] know, digital revolution in the 80s, a long time ago. Um, and my hair was brown. And, um, um, so, um, you know, to your question, yes, I did go to school. But, I did go to school to learn about myself. how I learn. I, I, in the system that I tell my son all the time, that, uh, if you learn, you know, how you learn, then you can learn anything in the world.

[00:05:27] Pablo Helman: um, so yes, then on top of that, I had, uh, experiences through the last 30 years on, on filmmaking. Um, and,

[00:05:36]: And yes, I think your resume is important, and your, uh, your reel is very important. But I think the most important thing is that you work with other people.

[00:05:47] Rob Bredow: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

[00:05:48] Pablo Helman: all the technical stuff, but all the stuff about, you know, working with people, it's just inside.

[00:05:54] Rob Bredow: Yep. Hey Nelson, how about you? Did you start with a formal education in visual effects or something [00:06:00] related?

[00:06:00] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: I did not. Um, it's funny because in those times we, we became, um, we got into this sort of by accident, right? It's like, you know, I started as a biology major in school and at some point I got interested in computers because I always had been. And, uh, I took a job and it led me into art direction. And then I was at a party and somebody said, Hey, Cinecide is looking for people to do films.

And on a whim, I went. And the next thing I know is like, you know, I jumped into Sinocide in its early days and, you know, they were doing, I think the restoration of, uh, snow white at the time. And, uh, and I jumped into the water world without knowing a single thing about it.

Right. But we learned on the job, you know, they just, they handed you a Linux machine. They said, Go and then they hadn't be stuff to do and I did it and I, you know, and I, and I learned it very quickly and, and next thing led to compositing, which was really something that I kind of fell in love with because you're putting the final image together for, for the screen.

But, you know, from there, you know, there were no [00:07:00] tools. There was, you know, none of this stuff was developed, right? So any problem that came up, you just, somebody threw the problem at you and you went. Let's figure out how to do it. And we did, you know, we built tools out of nothing. That's why, you know, uh, ultimately getting to ILM and kind of seeing where, where people had gotten from that, you know, early nineties to, to when I landed at ILM and seeing all the development of, you know, all this great stuff.

And, and, and the history of, of all the beginning of a film was super interesting to me, but like Pablo said, ultimately, you know, I think schooling teaches you how to deal with people and how to deal with problem solving the for for visual effects is just being a problem solver. However, you've done it right.

And then really be interested in your craft. Jump in there and like, really dig into what you want to do.

[00:07:51] Rob Bredow: It's interesting. Both you and Pablo have various artistic backgrounds, Pablo in music, uh, you in art direction, which was fantastic, of course, he [00:08:00] also had to have technical skills as well, but that was the first fantastic transition.

[00:08:03] Pablo Helman: by the way.

[00:08:04] Rob Bredow: Oh, there you go.

[00:08:05] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: That's right.

[00:08:06] Rob Bredow: There you go.

[00:08:07] Pablo Helman: Nelson, yeah, we're both from Argentina.

[00:08:11] Rob Bredow: from Argentina? Is that how you got your start?

[00:08:14] David Shirk: Not recently, no, not

[00:08:15] Rob Bredow: Not at all.

[00:08:17] David Shirk: a really traditional art and design school. I went to Pratt Institute in New York, and I studied film. It's really interesting because in the mid eighties I was sort of fascinated by computers and the idea of creating things on computers, especially, especially moving stuff. And there really wasn't much going on at that point. There's a lot happening in the industry, but if you wanted to do it yourself, it was very much a self starting kind of thing. And the interesting thing is while I was studying film, cause that's what I was majoring in and thought I was going to be an editor.

Um, was spending all of my study time working in the computer lab. They. School was sitting on a bunch of computers and they had no undergraduate program yet. So they were just kind of sitting there and I pulled the manuals off the [00:09:00] shelf and sat there and figured out how to do this stuff. And it was that sort of offline fascination that got me.

Kind of obliquely into the industry. I wound up landing in so school was really important, but mostly in terms of opening the avenues. But at the end of the day, what I took away from it was figuring out how to do stuff without somebody guiding me. Um, and that was that served really well going forward.

[00:09:25] Rob Bredow: and your best advice, Matt, is probably for, for today is probably from people who are, you know, three or five years ahead of you who have more recently got into the industry. Um, certainly you're hearing from everyone on this podcast that the real and the work is a calling card and is going to be the thing that is looked at first and your education may be a secondary. but you got to learn how to build that reality. You got to build that real somehow. You got to get the artistic background and the technical background to be able to do the work. and those things are going to be achieved through a lot of different means. But, uh, you know, you just heard three stories with art [00:10:00] backgrounds in school and then finding their way into what was then. A very small industry, a very nascent industry. There were a couple of places in the world to go to school for it, but most people, I didn't know anywhere you could go to school for computer graphics. I didn't realize that was an option. I knew that's what I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to learn it other than try to get my foot in the door and get started doing it.

[00:10:18] Jenny Ely: can put in our show notes a link to our Get In The Door website. It has a lot of people who are more recent graduates or a little newer in the industry who can share their stories of how they got in, and some of them went the traditional route, a lot of them didn't, so I will link that in the show notes if you want to check out some more recent stories there.

[00:10:36] Rob Bredow: Fantastic. Well, that takes us to our main topics for the day. We're going to dive into Alien Romulus and Wicked and just talk about some of the craft. Some of the details that went into these Oscar nominated films. Todd, did you want to start off with a question for Nelson as we dive into Alien?

[00:10:52] Todd Vaziri: long history of the xenomorph being depicted on screen And obviously the origin of the series [00:11:00] is in a purely practical way. So for Alien Romulus, ILM handled a lot of the CG clearly the emphasis, at least on this film, from the director, from top down, was that the, the man in suit, the practical alien creature, when you're building and particularly rigging, the xenomorphs for a movie like this, where that is the goal, like what? What specific things do you have to look out for and make sure that real will really work with the computer graphics version?

[00:11:36] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Was really clear from the very beginning, right? He wanted to have something that, um, was faithful to the original first two movies. but everything had to be grounded in reality, right? He was, he was really, really specific. Like I don't, I don't want people to like all of a sudden, like you're saying, jump to the CG, right?

He wanted to fool the audience. He said, look, the, the, he told the story of, you know, Stanley [00:12:00] Kubrick. You know, fooling people with, you know, 2001 A Space Odyssey. He wanted to achieve the same thing, which for me was really appealing, right? It's a lot harder than it looks, right? Because we can do CG really, really well, right?

But once you have something in camera, right? And you got this guy moving around doing very specific, you know, somewhat human movements, somewhat not human movements. And now you got to replicate that. In, you know, in all the scenes where you can't do it with the person in the set, right? Zero gravity, you know, action sequences, etc.

So one of the, one of the mandates for, for the action stuff was they need to move in a way that is still believable to that guy on the set. They don't move in a way that you detect them to be CG. So, you know, we did a lot of experimentation with animation and different types of cycles and, you know, different types of walks.

Um, and then we had to share that with Weta, you know, and Weta had to kind of do, you know, their versions that matched into ours. Right. And so it was, it [00:13:00] was a bit of a complicated task to do all of that. And then on the closeups, um, most people don't notice, but like you go from an extreme closeup of the guy in the suit.

Right. Or, or an animatronic, um, to full CG, like back to back. So we're cutting back and forth and, you know, you know, you can't tell. So we had to be really, really careful to, to, to make it work. Yes.

[00:13:24] Todd Vaziri: when I saw some of the behind the scenes and and I was absolutely fooled that certain shots that I thought were animatronic or man in suit where actually you're CG stuff and Like a like a head turning around the corner and you only see the top of the head. I'm like, oh, yeah, and that is at least from an animation standpoint like a good example of the restraint that was from the top down again from director all the way down to animator of We don't want anybody to clearly tell we don't want to telegraph what technique is being used. I was thinking back to The Mighty Joe Young [00:14:00] remake from 1990 something or other, where the character was mostly going to be, brought to life with a Rick Baker man and suit, but then there would also be CG versions. And when DreamQuest and ILM were building the CG versions, they realized we can't build a gorilla. have to build a man in a suit. And, and we cannot just all of a sudden have this character jumping around and doing all these things because that's going to immediately telegraph to the audience. Oh, now they switched techniques. Kudos to the team on Romulus. Like, nobody could tell which was which and nobody's even thinking about which is which. Which is a huge success.

[00:14:36] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Thank you.

[00:14:37] Rob Bredow: When you, um, you took the same techniques, I think that blend between the two worlds for the face huggers too, where they play in both versions, both underwater above the water chasing people down the hallways. it would be interesting to hear just a little bit more, you know, I, I specifically pay attention to the animation because to me, the look dev and the lighting is so seamless.

You, you, you can't even notice it, but especially in the animation, there had to be a lot of [00:15:00] individual choices to keep those things creepy and fast. And frenetic, but also blend with the things that were happening on set that actually you were on set for doing all those shoots.

[00:15:10] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Yeah. The face suckers were really interesting. Cause when I did a record, you know, great job replicating the originals and, and, you know, creating puppets that, you know, look very real on set and we had them, you know, peppered through the set. But when you see the original running guy, you know, the clacking legs running across the floor, kind of like they did in the original movie.

That's sort of the way, you know, animatronic face hugger works, right? It's a, you don't really get the full sense of any kind of weight or anything like that. So when we saw that, we kind of went, Oh man, you know, now we got to make a chase. We can't do it with these guys. So, so Fede was like, okay, we got to make these guys believable.

And again, that one took, you know, a lot of animation cycles to get that right, because it's very, very easy to make something look, you know, too lightweight or too heavy or too slow or too fast, right? It's like, it's just, it's just this really [00:16:00] delicate balance of hitting it just right. So that, you know, the chase is, is something that you, you, you can do.

You fully believe right? And, um, but I'm really proud of that sequence because, you know, it plays really nicely. It plays really, you know, really clean. You watch that chasing. Oh, that's pretty terrifying. Those things are really there. They're there.

[00:16:17] Rob Bredow: very terrifying. And the shots against the glass, a few of those are practical. A few of those are digital. And I honestly, I mean, I saw the digital shots coming together and I still can't remember which is which when I watched the movie back then.

[00:16:29] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: some hitting the glass are. digital, there's one close up where Kaylee walks up to when she's looking through the door and it, and it's, and it smacks on that's, that's practical, um, with, with a little help

[00:16:42] Rob Bredow: Just a little help here. And that's one of the things that Fede Alvarez, the director, was trying to lean into, right? Which is anytime he had an actor in a shot, he wanted a practical thing for the actor to react to, to get as much visceral reaction as possible,

[00:16:55] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: That's right. And not, not just for the actor to react, but for us to have something [00:17:00] to, to ground in reality, right? So every, every single thing that we shot and every single thing that we replicated, that I wanted to have something on set that we said, this, this is some, this is what it looks like in a real place.

And, it's great because you have that, you know, that full reference, but you know, it's, it's also difficult because things on set don't do exactly the same thing that they do in space, for example, right. Or in zero gravity. So then, then you kind of go, all right, now we got to solve all these other problems to make it all really tied together.

the other aspect of it was the, the photography, Galileo is, is, you Him and Fede had this really, really clear vision of what they wanted to do with them, with the photography and, uh, and everything that we did was, was geared toward matching that photography faithfully, right? So from, you know, replicating the lights, exactly every single light temperature from replicating the lenses exactly.

And he was [00:18:00] very, very specific about the lenses. He wanted lenses that were very, very clean. Um, actually a really nice quote from, from Gallo about that. You know why he picked those lenses. He said something, um, along the lines of that, you know, if, if you had aberrations that, um, he, he says, I felt that any artifacts would distract from what we wanted to show.

Right. So one, one of the things that was very, very specific was to, to not have lens flares and lens aberrations and that sort of thing to try to keep as clean an image as possible. So the, um, The goal was always to match photography, but then when you go into space, you don't have the same light source as a set.

So what do you do? Right? So then we have to solve some of those problems.

[00:18:45] Rob Bredow: the lighting on the exteriors is so beautiful and it feels like its beautiful hybrid between NASA photography is very real and high contrast and with just a touch of that cinematic style. [00:19:00] So you can see everything and you understand what story is going on, but it's more dramatic than a lot of other space shots we've seen in a lot of movies.

[00:19:07] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Yes, the NASA photography was something that we set out to do very specifically. It's like, you know, light it as if you are in space. It needs to be believable that you're in space. And then you do it and you look at it and you go, And this is really hard because you still need light sources. Right? So it, so it became a conversation with Gallo.

He was really instrumental because Gallo kind of came in, took a look at what we were doing and he goes, Oh, but on set you do this. Right. And then, we treated it like, like you were lighting, uh, a miniature on a set so that it would kind of match to the originals, but still within the language of what we were doing.

You know, NASA photography was. So that again was a really like very restrained exercise in lighting and had to be very, very balanced. Um, and then there was something that one of the composers pulled out. That was really funny. It's the, the Ridley Scott, [00:20:00] when he was shooting alien, um, the, the, there's a quote from him in, in one of the documentaries where, where he said, I think it was like his production designer said, there is no smoke in space.

And, Ridley Scott says, there is no mate. So we realized it's like, if we don't put a little bit of something out there, right, it's very difficult to make it look cinematic. So the way that we got around that is when, when the echo probe comes through in the very beginning, going through, through all the debris, we had a very, very clean, as you would see it in space.

And it looked very CG. So then we added, you know, very fine particulate as if there was this just very finely mold stuff to make it look like Atmos. And, and that kind of took over the edge and Fede looked at that and went, yeah, that's it. That's what I want.

[00:20:45] Todd Vaziri: I can't tell you, uh, probably all of us here have, have looked at a lot of NASA photography just shaking our heads, gone. Oh my gosh. Hi. We can't, we can't do this. Not that we can't do this, but it's not cinematic.

[00:20:57] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: That's right.

[00:20:58] Todd Vaziri: to work for our movie [00:21:00] because ultimately it's a movie. There was one little bit of space that, uh, of a space shot that I wanted to call out that I thought was a really nice touch.

It was a, a, a shot of, One of the engines firing up very close to camera and then moving away from camera. And a few what looked like droplets of water hitting the lens.

[00:21:19] Rob Bredow: yes,

[00:21:20] Todd Vaziri: as an alien fan, of course that drew me right back to the first alien movie where Ripley turns on the engines to try to kill the alien. And it's an extended shot where you're looking right up into the engines of that lifeboat. And it is like water. It's in engine material going right through the lens and it's dabbling all over the camera. And to me, that was like, Oh yeah, that's, that's an alien movie. How great is that? Nice little touch.

Not overdone. Very well done.

[00:21:50] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: Yeah. That, that was a, that was a great shot. We call it the homage shot because there is a shot in aliens where you see sort of the exact same thing. [00:22:00] It's, it's when, uh, when the alien gets ejected from the ship. So we studied that really closely. Connie actually did the shot. It's uh,

[00:22:08] Todd Vaziri: That's great.

[00:22:09] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: He did and studied it really, really closely.

And, and I, we believe what they did, I'm not, not entirely sure, but it's that they put an actual misting and water stuff hanging from the ceiling, coming toward the camera, right. To, to make it look like it was ejecting.

[00:22:24] Todd Vaziri: Yep.

[00:22:24] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: So we replicated that, um, but you know, with the motion of the ship. It was really tricky. It was really hard.

Didn't look right. It just always looks CG, right? So it, again, it was a super balance of how do we get exactly those droplets looking the same as what that homage shot is, right. But with all the, the true motion to, to the ship, and I think it turned out pretty spectacular.

[00:22:48] Rob Bredow: It's a beautiful shot. And for those who don't know Nelson and Connie, uh, they're partners both were at ILM in San Francisco for many years and then moved down when we started our Sydney studio and both lived down there with their family [00:23:00] there. So that's really fun that you guys were both on that same show.

[00:23:02] Pablo Helman: And I worked Connie when she came from Germany to

[00:23:07] Todd Vaziri: yeah

[00:23:08] Pablo Helman: Day.

[00:23:08] Rob Bredow: Yes. when I first met Connie too.

[00:23:11] Pablo Helman: yes, thirty years ago.

[00:23:12] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: 30 years ago, Pablo. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

[00:23:29] Rob Bredow: innovation, right?

Making a movie for a modern audience, Romulus. You know, it was a 45 year old franchise, Wicked is a 30 year old musical, but they both feel very modern and appropriate for today's audience. So whether we're talking about how you bring a xenomorph to life, respecting the past, but modernizing it for the future, or we're figuring out like, what does Oz's Emerald City look like while we're pushing technical boundaries?

What are some of the things that you all keep in mind? as you're hearing from the directors, you're hearing from the production [00:24:00] designers, you're getting started on these films, what is your point of view? Maybe Pablo, I'll throw to you to get started. What are some of the things that are top of mind as you're getting started on a movie like this?

[00:24:08] Pablo Helman: scale. Um, we need to, uh, we need to explain the world, the universe in which we lived. And, uh, it had very specific styles. were, uh, were started by the production designer. And there was, you know, there were rooms and rooms, full of, you know, all kinds of references. And, uh, we, uh, started in, uh, in London, uh, prepping the work for about, I'd say, 20 weeks. Before we, we started shooting and we saw those rooms being filled little by little and we were all, all the departments, it was very collaborative, uh, we were all part of discovering this world and we were learning from John too as he was looking at these pictures, what he liked, what he didn't like, [00:25:00] uh, there was a conversation obviously about, uh, architecture and, uh, and, um, uh, Um, what these buildings were going to be used for and, uh, who was going to be, you know, be, you know, who, who were the inhabitants of these, these rooms and why did they have to be so big? then you go back to the original story of the wizard. You know, he's a big, you know, big, big, uh, you know, character. And so he needs things to be really, really big,

[00:25:30] Rob Bredow: Right.

[00:25:31] Pablo Helman: there is nobody in the palace.

[00:25:33] Rob Bredow: Right.

[00:25:34] Pablo Helman: so, um, so we pick that up, and then, you know, after that, then you go into materials. You know, what, uh, emerald city, well, it's made of emeralds.

Well, it can't really be made of emeralds, and, uh, and then is there a glass there? Is there, uh, a material that, uh, We don't really know. I mean, it could be a material that is not part of this world. so, yeah, it's, it's a combination of all kinds of things that [00:26:00] everybody, uh, in the, in the film, you know, little community that we, that we are as a, as a, as a project, uh, learns from, from those experiences. Um, and then, um, The other thing, you know, that came from production design, plus all the art directories, is making models.

[00:26:19] Rob Bredow: Mm hmm.

[00:26:20] Pablo Helman: director is very tactile, uh, very, uh, organic. You know, as a company, we all take a look at the, uh, the models as they're built, and then we kind of figure out how we're going to do this.

Um, you know, especially lighting, what is wild, what is not, uh, how, you know, how, How much it was 25 feet. Um, you know, high interiors and 55 feet exterior. So, you know, what? Where do we take over?

[00:26:48] Rob Bredow: so, so much has been said about how much is built practically on this show. And you're talking about 25 feet interiors. That's a lot. 55 feet exteriors. That's a lot. That said, these buildings are [00:27:00] so enormous that still only takes care of what a quarter of the shots that are in camera. There's a lot of extension there too.

[00:27:05] Pablo Helman: Yeah. Plus, I think one of the other things that we haven't talked about is the music, the music part of it.

[00:27:11] Rob Bredow: Yeah. I

[00:27:11] Pablo Helman: Yeah, so, so we, you know, like I, like I always say, you know, this is my first musical experience as a musical. And for me,

[00:27:19] Rob Bredow: outside of your schooling and all the back, all the, the, the touring you did before you were a visual effects supervisor.

[00:27:25] Pablo Helman: yes, I mean, I actually wanted to write music for films, you know, when I first started, that's what I went to school for. Um, but, uh, but then somehow my career ended up being music on one side and images on the other. And for me, it was the images, you know, start and end with the work that we do.

[00:27:44] Rob Bredow: Mm-hmm

[00:27:45] Pablo Helman: we were in the middle of it, and, the, the dancers, for instance, you know, so, so I remember a conversation in which, uh, you know, the, we, we just walked through it, said there was like one football field big, right? [00:28:00] And so, uh, American football, that is, so, the dancers started rehearsing and they couldn't dance. Because the floors were, uh, they were all kinds of stones. So they had to change the floors. And so, now, you know, with, with that conversation about, you know, everything is practical, you know, the, the, you know, floor to ceiling.

Well, guess what? We changed a bunch of floors there after the dances.

[00:28:26] Rob Bredow: this is to put the dance floors in and then you had to paint those out

[00:28:30] Pablo Helman: Once they could, the dancers couldn't dance, they changed the floors.

[00:28:33] Rob Bredow: right?

[00:28:33] Pablo Helman: to be flat. And so now, uh, we shot the movie and now we're, oh, Jesus, that, that, uh, floor doesn't look good. Let's just change it.

[00:28:44] Todd Vaziri: Hmm,

[00:28:45] Pablo Helman: Well, there you go.

The whole sequence gets all the floors changed. And then, uh, to the question, you know, you know, floor to top, you know, all, all, you know, practical. Well, you have to put the lights somewhere. And so when you look up, [00:29:00] ceilings were completely replaced. You know, it's part of what we do, yeah? I mean, it's a story, we complete the story. and, um, it was a lot of fun. I think the music part of it is what got me to this project.

[00:29:15] Todd Vaziri: Hmm.

[00:29:16] Pablo Helman: just being, in the center of, you know, You know, all these dancers and stuff, or taking a look at a performance,

[00:29:23] Rob Bredow: Mm-hmm

[00:29:23] Pablo Helman: All of a sudden there is music that comes into the set. It's like you're watching a movie. It was a great experience.

[00:29:32] Rob Bredow: to be on set for some of those performances had to be quite an experience, that's for sure.

[00:29:36] David Shirk: I remember some early conversations Pablo and I had. Um, I read the script back when we were working together on Obi Wan Kenobi, and we were talking about the movie, and Pablo didn't have any familiarity with it. I did already. I knew the musical fairly well. And I was kind of intrigued to work on something that was a musical. a lot of times you're looking at shots, you're reviewing animation, you just mute the audio out. You don't want it to get in the way you want to have a [00:30:00] pure vision of it. And I've never been like that. Whenever, whenever a scene gets temp tracked in the edit, I'm always watching it with the music because for me, it's like a window into what the filmmaker's thinking about the context of the scene emotionally.

Because the thing that hooks me and the projects I like to work on are things that have some emotional weight to them. And that was kind of what was cool about the idea of working on something like Wicked. There's all this emotional freight in all these scenes. And the thing that's kind of cool about a musical is that communication has such purity to it. So, it's great. It's like the groundwork is already there. You know where the scene is going. And I just like to kind of absorb that, feel what it's supposed to be, and it kind of instructs you where you're supposed to go with things.

[00:30:46] Pablo Helman: I think one of the things about music that nobody realizes, well, maybe some people do, but it's the psychology of it. And there are certain, you know, intervals, the, you know, augmented fourths and, and, and [00:31:00] specific, um, you know, harmony that, uh, that, that, uh, you know, that you as a human want to resolve.

[00:31:08] Rob Bredow: Yeah.

[00:31:09] Pablo Helman: there's tension, there's all kinds of things that go with it. And you don't, you don't know it. But you react to it. That is, if you don't resolve that seventh, you know, uh, chord, there's something that doesn't sit well with you. and, it's the same thing with images. Uh, but a lot more, um, uh, it's a lot more, uh, sensitive, I think,

[00:31:33] Rob Bredow: Mm-hmm

[00:31:34] Pablo Helman: smells and sound.

Alright.

[00:31:40] Rob Bredow: I think that you had with John Chu. uh, it was kind of an interview, it was, it was before John had picked his, uh, head of department, visual effects supervisor, to run the whole show. I remember you went into that meeting. Very, very well prepared, of course you always want to be well prepared if you're going to go sit down and talk to a director about their movie. But you also came with a [00:32:00] very specific point of view. You said what you had imagined would be the only way to do the creatures, the only way to pull off the balance of the realism and the depth. In the and the expressivity of the characters and you had all this artwork that you walked in with. And I remember sitting back watching this meeting going like, wow, if John doesn't like this, there's no way we're getting this job.

But the specificity of it and the research you had done was I mean, I could just. I was trying to read him. I'm like, does he, does he like this or does he hate it? And then like, soon as you finished talking, he's like, yes, and, and then he started just building on everything you were pitching, which was like, it was, I remember being like, kind of a gutsy move, but then also when you and I chatted afterwards, you're like, well, this was the move, this, if I was the right supervisor for this movie, we were going to be on the same page.

Otherwise I couldn't see it another way. So it was such a good, uh, it had a lot of specificity. I think a lot is driven from the music and the.

[00:32:53] Pablo Helman: Yeah, it was, but, but everybody likes the fact that basically the message was we are [00:33:00] here to shoot the movie the way you want and who the director likes to direct. So let's put somebody in the, on the set to, you know, for you to direct. And you know, it's very rare that, you know, somebody doesn't like that,

[00:33:13] Rob Bredow: Right, because in every case you had an actor on set acting for all those digital roles.

[00:33:17] Pablo Helman: Yeah.

[00:33:18] Rob Bredow: Yes.

[00:33:20] Pablo Helman: So, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a difficult thing to, to land a job, but like I, like I said before I cheated a little bit because I do a lot of research. So for a week, I took a look at his, you know, what he had done before, uh, interviews, uh, interviews of the DPs and, you know, how, how he, you know, covers his scene. I, you know, you talk about storytelling, you talk about, uh, you know, beginning, middle, and end, and, uh, resolution, and a little bit of lighting, but you do it out of research out of understanding, trying to understand if I'm going to spend three years with this person, [00:34:00] better have a pretty good idea of what this person wants or else my life is going to be miserable. So, um,

[00:34:07] Rob Bredow: Yeah.

[00:34:08] Pablo Helman: you know, so, yeah, that's part of getting a job.

[00:34:14] Todd Vaziri: I wanted to touch on something, David, you mentioned the mus, the, the musical numbers and being the, and particularly those numbers being the foundation of the edit. You know, typically when we all work on space battle shots, sequences, fight sequences, action, car chases and things like that, we're, we're constantly pitching to the director, oh, you know, if we. Get this shot a little bit longer. We can really sell this moment of this and then, oh, yeah, don't worry. Let's lengthen that shot or let's shorten this shot. And there's no, there's no concern of like, Oh, my gosh, the and the foundational integrity of the sequence will be out of balance.

Whereas on a show like this, there is no one frame [00:35:00] added without taking a frame away from the next shot or because those two frames are Those beats have to happen at just the right moment. How did that work in animation? Uh, or did you just immediately dive in and go, all right, this is where we have to hit these marks at this time.

[00:35:15] David Shirk: It was, it was really straightforward in the, in the kind of down on the ground, personal acting stuff, like, you know, the

[00:35:21] Todd Vaziri: Mm.

[00:35:21] David Shirk: with Tulsa bear, she was singing, it was, it was fairly straightforward and you know, you pretty much, when you have a character that's planted there and singing, you're Um, you can have all kinds of, all kinds of openings to, to shift how the action's played.

But you don't have to really worry about things like cuts. You

[00:35:37] Todd Vaziri: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

[00:35:52] David Shirk: What was great about that is having the foundation of Cynthia's performance and which of course was built on stage and [00:36:00] collaborating with, with physical effects and the stunt teams, all this great work on the wires and her performance was right there. It was, it was terrific. John wanted more scope. So we were, we were always looking for ways, well, how can we open this up?

Can we, can we take this bit where she's swinging off a pendulum and make that a wider path? And how do we do that without compromising what she had done? So it was that constant, that constant game. And there were points. Along the way where we would pitch, we would pitch ideas. Well, how about we try this?

I think we can do a thing where she sweeps past camera and we can, you know, we're on her back and the cape goes past camera, it'll kind of wipe and then we can reveal her flipping around and sliding away from camera. How cool would that be? And it's like, okay. And then for a couple of weeks, there'd be a big hole in the cut and like, this is where David's going to give us this, this moment of sliding around.

And, um,

[00:36:49] Pablo Helman: I think it has a lot to do with John Chu's, uh, you know, his process. Yes, there was previs, uh, but it was superseded by, you know, a little stick [00:37:00] with alphabet at the end, and, and moving, moving that stick through, through the model, and all of a sudden, Just paying attention and then actually having shot something and then having put it, you know, put it together and, and combining shots and doing a combination of things. the good thing is that he's completely open. He's like, they,

[00:37:22] David Shirk: he's very kind of experimental and loves improvisation. John's a really, John has a very open handed kind of creative process, which is fantastic for all of us. There's a great, great opportunity to collaborate and he's really generous. So, uh, yeah, there was a lot of, there's a lot of that, but as you, as you say, you know, sometimes the music, the music can be a little tyrannical in terms of we gotta be back, we gotta be back here at this point, you can't have more than three frames. And so there would definitely be cases, um, where we had to do a little bit of patching across the cut, just to make it shorter. Just keep that kind of flow. and, [00:38:00] you know, John was great in those moments. We're like, well, she's flying out of frame here, but then we're going back and she's, she's backing up and going across the frame again.

And it's all those things. And it was just going with him. And he's like, no, this is going to work. And you do it and it works. And

[00:38:13] Rob Bredow: great. Speaking of timing and complicated shots, the opening shot of the film, that one er. I don't even know how long it is, but I mean, it tells, it does so much heavy lifting for the storytelling it establishes, you know, everything about the legacy story, it gets you set up for the story. You're about ready to hear. Um, there was a lot of timing that went into that shot too. Yes. With all that level of detail, beautiful waterfalls, right? Mm hmm.

[00:38:47] Pablo Helman: that, you know, eats up a lot of resources and time and it was first shot, uh, turnover, last shot, final. but in his mind it was the crime scene. [00:39:00] You know, it's basically that there has been a crime that is going to happen throughout the two movies. And if you, at the end of the second movie, you're going to come back to the beginning of the first one and realize why things are the way they are, and he was very particular. But I mean, I think, uh, you know, plus, you know, we did like four, three or four months of previews. We gave it away because we started shooting. Then, we did, um, you know, all kinds of, uh, you know, post vis. Uh, then, we put a, we, we went to a toy store, and we bought a castle and a bunch of different things, because that was the only way that John can put it on the table.

Just, here's your iPhone, and then just move it. Then, uh, you know, it took two weeks for him to do it, and finally David came in and, uh, and sat with him. You sit over here, and you don't get up until we get in the shot. And I think,

[00:39:56] David Shirk: open Maya and we're going to look at this.

[00:39:59] Pablo Helman: and John [00:40:00] appreciated that because he could change everything right there, you know. Um, so, and then there was the, producing the actual shot, you know.

[00:40:08] David Shirk: Yeah. And talk about, talk about the music and, and trying to hit beats because there

[00:40:14] Pablo Helman: All right.

[00:40:15] David Shirk: this continuous shot and there were really specific beats, um, that had to be hit with the action. And there'd be sections of the shot, you know, I remember as we come out of the castle, we kind of sweep across that desert out beyond Oz and you know, I remember an earlier point where, where it was like, well, it's a little dull.

We're looking at this desert for so long, so let's get back to the castle. So now you've chopped, you've chopped. A lot of seconds out of the shot, but we have to drag the camera now, because now we have to still wait for this beat to hit on the music. And so there's this constant re timing and, oh, by the way, that waterfall isn't big enough.

Let's push it back from camera and make it like a mile tall. And so we're constantly changing both the space and the camera and the events inside, you know, and I would say to Pablo on the phone sometimes, well, we've got the camera worked out, but I'm, I [00:41:00] have to redo all the monkeys again, because of course that's all, that's all

[00:41:03] Pablo Helman: You know, this is the thing about visual effects. Yeah, I mean, you can, you can get a sequence to be whatever the director wants it and the editor wants it to be. And then, uh, you know, we start rendering the shot. All of a sudden, you know, all the simulation looks like, you know, it's like, You can barely see the smoke going by, or water. Why, why is that? Well, your creature is traveling at 700 miles an hour.

[00:41:27] Rob Bredow: right,

[00:41:28] Pablo Helman: and

[00:41:28] Rob Bredow: time to fix it.

[00:41:30] Pablo Helman: you have an edit. And you ask Yeah,

[00:41:40] Rob Bredow: It's kind of, they have to fly almost the speed of sound.

[00:41:43] Pablo Helman: camera

[00:41:44] David Shirk: places.

[00:41:44] Pablo Helman: The camera is moving

[00:41:45] David Shirk: getting bigger and it keeps moving further from camera. We got to really haul it to get across this stuff.

[00:41:51] Todd Vaziri: Mm-hmm

[00:41:52] Pablo Helman: and you know, there's a lot of cheating there, uh, but at the end of the day it's about what you see,

[00:41:57] Rob Bredow: Right.

[00:41:58] Pablo Helman: it's, it's, it's, does it look, does [00:42:00] it tell the story that you want it to look, to, to, uh, to tell, um, and, and to be honest, the director doesn't care,

[00:42:08] Rob Bredow: Yeah. 700 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Just make it look right.

[00:42:12] Pablo Helman: yeah.

[00:42:13] Rob Bredow: right. Um, Todd, before we move on, did you have one, one or two more questions you wanted to get in?

[00:42:19] Todd Vaziri: when you all have to work together to try to find the best shot, I mean, what are some, what are some tricks of, uh, working together and that, that give and take the push and pull between sticking to your schedule, sticking to your storyboards and your Wait, we just had a really good idea, or the performer had a really good idea, but it's gonna change framing of the shot. How do you balance those things on a production this big?

[00:42:44] Pablo Helman: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, from being on set, I mean, there is really, that's where John loves to be. He plays, he does, he's, he's, he's, he's playing time. Who am I to tell them not to do that?

[00:42:58] Todd Vaziri: Yeah.

[00:42:59] Pablo Helman: know, [00:43:00] um, I mean, you try to be as informative as possible, uh, without being curtailing and, and, and, uh, clinical, uh, but, but you, you are part of the process and you, you react to things and if there is time, um, you know, there's other people that do that.

There's the AD, there's the line producer, there's the creative producer, uh, and they are all in concert. So, um, you just go for the ride and you just, the only thing that you don't know is what's going to end up in the, um, you know, in the, in the edit.

[00:43:34] Todd Vaziri: Yeah.

[00:43:35] Rob Bredow: Right. Then

[00:43:39] Pablo Helman: you know, this is never going to work, but sure, let's just go for it. Well, guess what? Ended up in the edit. You know, there's some huge cables that are going right in somebody's face. It's like, you can't use that. Well, it's in the movie.

[00:43:55] Rob Bredow: might be in the movie and you'll be fixing it.

[00:43:59] David Shirk: It's [00:44:00] interesting because even sometimes going into, going into post, there were still openings for, for injecting that kind of stuff. A lot of times we had great footage of the onset performers standing in for Sage History and gave a really kind of interesting, thoughtful performance that we could lean into. And then sometimes they'd cut to some random placeholder and, you know, they'd say, John never wanted to be about Chistery's watching Elphaba read the Grimmery, or Chistery's looking at Elphaba, or Chistery's looking in this direction. It was always, for him, what's he doing? What's he thinking? What are we trying to say in the shot?

So we found ourselves in the position of We had to shoot animators acting these things out, so that John could look at performance options and think about what he wanted us to use. So we had these interesting cases where we'd be in animation dailies and I was literally critiquing people's performances.

I'd say, well, let's do a little more of this, a little more of that, and then we'd put a package together, send it to John, and he'd cut with it. it led to a kind of interesting thing. There was a shot that he wound up choosing one of my performances, And [00:45:00] so there was me acting on screen in place at Chistory and then eventually he got replaced. So when we had the final performance done, I remember one day in Dailies it comes up and there's Chistory acting and John just starts giggling. He's I'm sorry. He's like, all I can see is you. And that kind of became a hallmark for the entire rest of the show, right up through our final review, he would just kind of start laughing every time it came up because he said that it just looks, still looks like you. so, but it was, it was kind of an interesting opening for us to, uh, to, to collaborate with him and figure out what those creature performances were going to be.

[00:45:35] Rob Bredow: those performances are so strong, and they really come through. I think, I mean, I know he's also having fun because he had seen you in the reels. And I think in the, uh, three minutes before and after real, I think we get a glimpse of you performing as a, I think as history there.

[00:45:48] David Shirk: that's the

[00:45:48] Rob Bredow: That's the shot. Okay.

Great. Take a look. We'll link to these reels online. If you grab it out of the show notes, um, with time getting short, I thought maybe, uh, I'll steal Todd's last [00:46:00] question and just ask it of each of you, you know, one, what's one shot that surprised you the most? As you were doing this production, maybe, maybe it was because it took the most iterations 'cause it was really tricky to find the right answer.

Or maybe it was because it came together and really told the story visually in a way that excited you. Um, what's just a, a shot that, that, that still captures your imagination. Or a shot that has a story to tell. But, but one minute each. This is gonna be the lightning round. And, um, looks least intimidated.

So I'll throw to Pablo first.

[00:46:27] Pablo Helman: I think that the most, uh, you know, surprising shot for me was the shot, almost the last shot of the movie. It's not the last, but the, the next to the last,

[00:46:37] Rob Bredow: Mm-hmm

[00:46:37] Pablo Helman: uh, which is the cape.

[00:46:39] Rob Bredow: Uhhuh,

[00:46:40] Pablo Helman: because, because the play, in the play at the end of the act one, you see the, you know, the, the, you get surprised as an audience seeing that the cape is moving and, you know, there was this idea that we all kind of like been thinking about what, how, how are we going to do that shot.

Is this, is this going to be, we're going to cut to that shot and the [00:47:00] cape is going to be, you know, 60 feet long? How, I mean, is it going to be laughable or not? But so, so it kind of like, uh, and for a while, you know, I would, I would just go to bed thinking, this is never going to work. And this is going to be one of those shots that will never work. And we all contributed to it, to it. Emmy Myron, you know, uh, Alice, uh, David, you know, all the animators, all the You know, really, uh, contributed to it. Uh, and, uh, it was also done in Sydney. Uh, Anthony Smith was the supervisor over there. And so, uh, it, it worked. Uh, but it worked not because of the cape, but because of also, it's a, it's a moment in the movie where we almost go to a religion, uh, state.

Kind of an environment where

[00:47:51] Rob Bredow: Mm hmm.

[00:47:52] Pablo Helman: are, you know, Renaissance and the light is, you know, it's in the backlighting all these clouds. We get into this, [00:48:00] this incredible colors, uh, you know, greens and oranges and, and, and, and she's basically alphabets basically, uh, Uh, back later, but then, uh, the, the, the cherry on the whole thing is that it's a structural thing for the movie.

If

[00:48:15] Rob Bredow: Mm hmm.

[00:48:16] Pablo Helman: look at that, she goes back, there is a cape, and then the music grows, and she does the, the work right, and then the music basically, it gives you the tonic, you know, talking about music, you know, just the, the tonic for the whole Q. And then she turns around and then you're such a high, you're such a high in the audience and then she turns around and then you go, wait, wait, where are you going?

[00:48:40] Rob Bredow: Yes.

[00:48:41] Pablo Helman: around and then she lost her and then to be continued.

[00:48:46] Rob Bredow: Yes.

[00:48:47] Pablo Helman: You know, it's, it's, it's everything works for that, for that shot and there's, uh, just a very collaborative thing.

[00:48:55] Rob Bredow: Ah, that's a beautiful shot. Nelson.

[00:48:58] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: For [00:49:00] me, it was the, the planet,

[00:49:02] Rob Bredow: Mm.

[00:49:03] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: you know, we have, um, we have very limited reference of what it's like to exit a planet and see it from above. We have just earth, right? So our starting point was earth and we, we've made a sort of a very faithful, you know, um, realistic looking planet with a full atmosphere, et cetera, et cetera.

And started showing that, but we needed to discover a planet that felt the same way, felt realistic, felt like you were in space and like it was a real piece of photography. That matched Gala's aesthetic and, and also kind of gave you the full fantasy. And as soon as you go into fantasy, you can do anything, right?

So that's where we went. I didn't realize just how difficult it is to pull off a planet that, you know, cause we've seen them a million times, right? But they usually feel like, you know, a CG planet or a Digimat or this, they couldn't feel that way. So we went through quite a bit of iteration there because it was a [00:50:00] real kind of pivotal moment transitioning us from.

Photography, right. And from the, the, the field that they had established. And now we were out in space and making that coherent so that, that you didn't jump out all of a sudden into the CG world. Right. So it took quite a bit of discovery there. And, uh, ultimately, you know, the, the, doing the physicality of the planet, doing a true atmosphere and then doing, uh, you know, volumetric clouds that actually moved and like, you know, making everything physically correct, I think was the real payoff there.

[00:50:33] Rob Bredow: Nice. David.

[00:50:36] David Shirk: Mine's not quite as profound as Pablo's is because I think his idea was a beautiful one, but when we were In the early stages of development, Glinda and Elphaba were walking through the hall of grandiosity, and on set they shot with like one stand in under each window. And we laid it all out, here's one monkey under each window. Discussion came up, wouldn't it be cool if there were more monkeys in here? Maybe it [00:51:00] should be an overwhelming amount of monkeys. And we're like, oh, well, here's 20 monkeys. Here's 40 monkeys. Here's 60. And, and it's all the monkeys. And we're like, okay, that's cool. But then it was like, we have this transformation shot where we have to have all these monkeys changing into winged creatures.

And that turned out to be huge. But on the opening night of the movie, we were attending the premiere. I'm sitting next to Anthony Smith, who headed out, our Sydney team. They did the, they did that, that those, that set of shots. And I'm sitting yes to Marissa and the shot comes up where marble turns around and all the monkeys take off behind her in slow motion. The crowd spontaneously applauded and I almost jumped outta my seat. I

[00:51:40] Rob Bredow: So good.

[00:51:41] David Shirk: I got so excited at that, at the reaction to that. And that was a, that was a really rewarding moment,

[00:51:47] Rob Bredow: No. Three fantastic shots. Thank you so much for sharing those stories. This has been super fun. This takes us to the martini where we each get to share one fun thing that we have enjoyed that others might, Todd, why [00:52:00] don't you get us kicked off with the martini?

[00:52:01] Todd Vaziri: Yeah, sure. Um, a short time ago, we lost one of our great American filmmakers, David Lynch. And, you know, one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. And I, there's, there's so much, if you want to dive in, if you have never seen any of David Lynch's movies, known for their surreal, very weird qualities. And, uh, I'm going to recommend David Lynch. Probably his least surreal and least weird movie. It's on Disney plus. It's a g rated movie called the Straight Story. It is just an absolutely beautiful picture about human beings going through stuff culminating with two brothers having a relationship. The relationship is implied the entire film, and then you see them, the two of them together. And, it is just filmmaking. It is just such a wonderful movie. And, uh, it's readily available to anybody who has Disney so I [00:53:00] strongly recommend A Straight Story. Sorry. Laughter.

[00:53:05] Jenny Ely: my martini this week is all of the DC universe. I've been a DC loyalist my whole life. My gateway drug was Batman 1989. And of course, like most girls of the 80s, Wonder Woman. But over the last decade or so, I feel like Marvel has been hogging the spotlight a little bit. So, um, and there's great Marvel movies and streaming series, but these are not the characters that I have a lot of nostalgia for, or even really knew a lot about until seeing the films in the MCU. So I feel like DC has kind of been waiting in the wings for its big moment, and I think it's here. uh, James Gunn is heading up DC Studios now, and from what I've seen so far, I am pleased and hopeful. Uh, the trailer for the new Superman movie I watched many, many times, And of course Krypto, super dog, stole the show.

But the whole thing just made me giddy and excited for the future of the DCU. And I am very picky about my [00:54:00] Lois Lanes and so far I approve of this one. We'll, we'll see how she turns out in the film. but so far so good. And, um, also a lot of the new shows, um, new animated shows that are coming out. So, , on Max, Creature Commandos is incredible.

If you haven't watched that, I recommend it. It's funny. It's extremely violent. It is a very hard R if you're thinking about watching it with kids or your grandma. Just be cautious. It's pretty racy. I don't want to spoil anything, but I'll just say it's kind of Suicide Squad adjacent. And David Harbour voices Frankenstein. If you need more to convince you than that, then you're not going to watch it anyway, so. Um, and Alan Tudyk is a great voice actor. He voices a very unhinged character. Season 1 is out now on Macs. the whole thing is there, I'd say. Uh, definitely check that out. And also, the comic books are killing it.

So, last October, they kicked off a new line called the All In.Series, or All In Line. And it's basically a new entry point for anybody to start reading DC Comics. So, cause you know, it can be hard to jump into the storyline of a comic book and have absolutely no clue what's going on because everything is [00:55:00] interconnected and, you know, certain arcs go for a short amount of time, a long amount of time, um. So it's all of our favorite standard superheroes. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash. Plus a lot of newer characters and groups that are getting their own storylines. And you can pick up and dive in anywhere with any of those characters and not feel like you're left behind. Because you're going to be in from the beginning.

So there's also a parallel series called the Absolute series. And it's basically a series of characters that are in a parallel universe. Very very cool. It's one of the best comic book lines. I think i've read in a long time It's it's a little bit of an alternate universe for some of the big name characters um, so there's the premise is like what if batman or what if bruce wayne didn't have money or what if wonder woman hadn't been Raised by the amazons like how would they have fared as superheroes?

It's very wild and dark so there's Absolute Batman Superman and Wonder Woman right now and then absolute flash and absolute martian manhunter. I think it will start in March. So they're like five comics each. It's a short storyline, easy to get through and there's takes on these classic characters that we've never seen before, which is [00:56:00] really hard to do with characters that have been around since like the 30s and 40s. We've seen every version of them possible and there's definitely some new stuff. So I'm very excited about what's happening in the land of DC right now and I can't wait to see what's coming up.

[00:56:14] Rob Bredow: the entire DC universe,

[00:56:17] Jenny Ely: of it. The entire DC universe. Yeah.

[00:56:36] Pablo Helman: and it is an incredible bass for lots of reasons. Yes, I used to use it, um, you know, uh, but because of this. Which is Paul McCartney using the, uh, the same bass that I bought.

[00:56:49] Rob Bredow: Nice.

[00:56:50] Pablo Helman: And this is what keeps me sane.

[00:56:53] Rob Bredow: I love it. That is a beautiful instrument. We got to hear you play it. Well, I guess we may hear you play it on the [00:57:00] outro here. Yeah. Okay. Hang on. Hang on one minute. You'll hear it on the outro. David. Ah,

[00:57:08] David Shirk: and we do not live in a binary, in a binary world in our pursuits. And I love to have a distraction that's a little more binary. And I've actually started taking to, uh, to jigsaw puzzles. It's great to leave the desk, go away, put a few pieces in something.

You're like, ah, I have accomplished something and then go back to work. Um, so I'm going to plug something called, uh, Liberty Puzzles. Liberty Puzzles.

[00:57:30] Todd Vaziri: Mmm.

[00:57:30] David Shirk: So some friends of mine in New Jersey, uh, had a stack of these things and I put a few pieces in while I was there uh, they're, they're beautifully crafted.

They're made in Colorado. It's all laser cut from quarter inch wood and because of that, they can make pieces that are crazy.

[00:57:45] Todd Vaziri: Mmm.

[00:57:46] David Shirk: The coolest thing about finishing one of these puzzles, I did one that's kind of folk art of a bunch of stags running through woods. So you sandwich it, flip it upside down after it's completed, pull the back off, and the pieces are basically all the elements from the front of the puzzle but cut [00:58:00] into the wood. So there's antlers, and, and trees, and small animals, and birds, and actual stags, but they're all shaped out of these puzzle pieces. They're beautiful works of craftsmanship, and they are beautiful. Incredibly difficult to put together, but not frustrating, which is kind of amazing. So

[00:58:18] Rob Bredow: nice.

[00:58:20] David Shirk: Liberty puzzles.

[00:58:21] Jenny Ely: are you able to just do it a piece at a time, or are you like me and you're like, I'm just gonna work on this puzzle and then it's 4 a. m. and you're like, what am I doing with my life?

[00:58:28] David Shirk: get like two pieces in and walk away and you

[00:58:31] Jenny Ely: Oh.

[00:58:31] David Shirk: pieces later and you've lost half of dinner

[00:58:34] Jenny Ely: Exactly.

[00:58:36] Rob Bredow: the mark of a good, uh, any good puzzle, right? Uh, difficult, but not frustrating. That's a good, that's a

[00:58:41] Jenny Ely: Yeah.

[00:58:42] David Shirk: yeah.

[00:58:43] Rob Bredow: Oh,

[00:58:46] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: uh, something that I like to do around Newtown, which is where I live, Newtown in Sydney is kind of a bit of a Navant guard part of the city. There's a lot of street art. Uh, and I like to take walks, not just through Newtown, but [00:59:00] through Sydney as well, and I photograph. Street art, and I photograph, uh, sort of curious things that I find on, you know, walls and sidewalks and, you know, telephone poles.

just because, one, I love the walk, because the city's, it's sort of a mixture between, you know, wilderness and, and, and city, but, um, also, it feels like I'm kind of going through, like, Mini private museum and then I have some images at the end that I collect and, and, uh, and they remind me of really great places.

I do it around, you know, anytime I travel, but here there's just so much around here and it's constantly changing. So it's like having a little art gallery in my own tent.

[00:59:37] Rob Bredow: that's

[00:59:37] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: what I do.

[00:59:38] Rob Bredow: Do you post that online, Nelson? Or

[00:59:40] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: I don't, I,

[00:59:42] Rob Bredow: Yeah.

[00:59:42] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: keep it for myself and like most of my art, it's like, I just, you know,

[00:59:46] Todd Vaziri: Private

[00:59:46] Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser: it's, it's a bit of a private collection.

Yeah. Yeah. It's nice.

[00:59:49] Rob Bredow: love it. My Martini is, um, some Lightroom presets. I also like photography. And, um, found some film simulation presets [01:00:00] that, uh, work in Lightroom. um, they, I found them at, uh, I found them online somewhere. Somebody linked to them. called theclassicpresets.com. Then there, if you're into color science at all, they have an interesting blog post about how you should be doing your color correction in the linear color space, which is how we work here at work.

So all the math works properly. it turns out if you combine these film simulations with the linear camera profiles they link to, they tell you how to make them, but you can also go to Tony Kuiper's Kuiper's site. I'm not saying his last name, right? But something like that, which is linked to, from the classic presets.

com You can load those in as profiles into Lightroom. And then you have a linear color space to work in, and then you can use these film emulation LUTs on top of that. There's actually not LUTs, it's actually using the color corrector knobs in Lightroom to simulate these film looks. And, you know, I don't know how accurate they are, but they feel very nostalgic, they look beautiful.

If you photograph with them, if you photograph with these things in mind, I think you can get some nice compositions. And they even have details like being able to pull [01:01:00] stops or push stops on your negative, and it has exposed, the, the process in the same way so you can flash your blacks or, or, or bring your highlights down using those kind of looks, which I find very satisfying and fun.

And it's nice cause you can just experiment with all of them like, Oh, what if I shot this on Agfa 400? What if I pulled a stop? Oh, that's cool. That's actually pretty nice. So it's a nice way to experiment with your photography. my photos are online, uh, photos at my name. com, photos. roberto. com with some stuff there if you want to take a look at some stuff that I haven't yet processed with these new looks, but I think the classic presets, if you grab like his latest set of about a hundred of them with most of the film simulations he's done, I think it sets you back about 50 euros or like 53.

So pretty reasonable for all the effort that has gone into it. So thank you for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast. Thank you to our guests, Pablo and David and Nelson who joined us today. If you have a question for the show, or you'd like to suggest a topic for a future show, email us at lighter, darker at ILM.

com. You can also contact us or follow us on social media. We'll [01:02:00] leave all of our links for those of us who want to be linked to, uh, in social media on ILM. com slash lighter, darker, along with the transcripts for this episode, you can find all that stuff in the show notes. If you like the show, like, and subscribe on YouTube or leave us a comment there, or give us a review on Apple podcasts.

We would love for you to let your friends know about the show. We want to thank Industrial Light and Magic for hosting the Lighter Darker podcast. This show is produced by Jenny Ely and myself, Rob Rado. episode has been edited by Chris Hawkinson, and we want to thank the entire PR team led by Greg Gresby, who worked behind the scenes to make all this stuff happen.

So thank you team. congratulations and good luck to Nelson, Pablo, and David. We'll be cheering you on at the Academy Awards coming up on March 2nd. And we're going to leave you with music from our very own Pablo Hellman. So thank you for listening to the lighter, darker podcast until next time.

Mayor pixels be both lighter and darker.

[01:02:56] Jenny Ely: [01:03:00]