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[00:00:00] Intro

[00:00:00] Justin Talley: I saw that moment, which is my favorite thing. about the job is to see the moment when somebody gets on board with the magic trick

[00:00:13] Rob Bredow: Welcome to Lighter Darker: The ILM Podcast, where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling. Thank you for joining us for Lucky Episode 13, and we release every other Tuesday. My co-host is here, Todd.

[00:00:27] Todd Vaziri: Hey, I'm Todd Vaziri, Compositing Supervisor and Artist at ILM.

[00:00:31] Rob Bredow: And our producer, Jenny.

[00:00:33] Jenny Ely: Hi, Jenny Ely, production manager at ILM.

[00:00:36] Rob Bredow: And I'm Rob Bredow, Chief Creative Officer at ILM and SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. And we all work together in the visual effects, animation, and immersive entertainment industry. And today, we have an episode all focused on virtual production. And we brought you a couple of co hosts to join us from our ILM team. I'm going to start by introducing Shivani. Shivani is a senior producer at ILM working in the visual effects and virtual production team, she recently worked on a number of Lucasfilm shows, including The Mandalorian, multiple series, Obi Wan Kenobi, Skeleton Crew, and most recently the new Mandalorian and Grogu feature, which we will not be talking about today.

It's too early. Uh, and this summer is going to be 10 years at ILM for Shivani. So welcome to the show Shivani.

[00:01:23] Shivani Jhaveri: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

[00:01:25] Rob Bredow: And Justin, who is a virtual production supervisor and ASC associate member, who has been with ILM working on the StageCraft team for five years. Past projects include Avengers Infinity War and Endgame, the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Book of Boba Fett, the Fablemans, and also Mandalorian and Grogu movie, of which we shall not speak. So, uh, and before working at ILM, Justin spent 15 years as a DP. He's been in nearly 10 years as a head mounted camera technician, so he's got a lot of experience working on set and, uh, welcome to the show, Justin.

[00:01:58] Justin Talley: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:00] Rob Bredow: This is going to be fun. Uh, we're going to get started with some questions from the mailbag.

We're going to try a new feature and then, you know, we're going to dive deep into virtual production and what it's like working on set. So Jenny, do you want to get us started with a couple of questions?

[00:02:12] Questions From The Mailbag

[00:02:12] Jenny Ely: Yes, and I love our first question today. This is from Ross Brown, and he asks, on the show Lighter Darker, when referencing films being worked on, you refer to them as a show. Why is that? Why is that, Todd?

[00:02:25] Todd Vaziri: That's a really good question. I really wish I could understand the origin of it all, but I can define it and the way we've always defined it and, like folks who work on films and TV shows show refers to the production, the production of the project, the hiring, preparation, the filming, the editing, the act of working on it as opposed to the film, which I don't know, most people refer to as the final project, the final film, you can pull up the blu ray, the, the film on blu ray or watch the film theater.

So show refers to the time that you spent working on the project. That's how, that's how I always defined it.

[00:03:06] Rob Bredow: Yeah it's funny. We kind of use it without even thinking about the term. Does that line up with the way you, you hear it used as well, Shivani? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:12] Shivani Jhaveri: Yeah. I, I was just thinking about that as well. Cause I've been asked that by a number of my friends too. They're like, why, why are you calling this a show the project that you're on? Um, I'm wondering if the origin goes back to show business

[00:03:25] Rob Bredow: Yeah.

[00:03:26] Shivani Jhaveri: Because there's the whole concept of like, you know, you work in show business. And I think everything that we do is show business, whether it's a, you know, a feature or a series or an immersive project. So, but yeah, it's interesting. We call them all shows. It's actually ingrained in ILM all the way to the back end, right? Like we,

[00:03:45] Rob Bredow: Yeah.

[00:03:46] Shivani Jhaveri: and it's coded in as well.

So.

[00:03:49] Rob Bredow: Yeah, it's a nice catch all term, and one we even use without thinking about it. So thank you, Ross, for highlighting that question.

[00:03:55] Jenny Ely: Alright, uh, next up we have a question from Stephen Wood. I've just been watching the VFX breakdown for Gladiator 2, and I was wondering how the breakdowns are made. There seems to be a common approach in breakdown videos of moving around the grey 3D model, dropping elements in, and then showing the various passes.

Is this done using standard software? Do you keep the elements during production for this? And are there people who specialize in doing this?

[00:04:21] Rob Bredow: Yes, one of them is on the call with us today. His name is Todd Vaziri.

[00:04:26] Todd Vaziri: Yeah, I am definitely a breakdown snob and what is really interesting about breakdowns when you're trying to, it's a different, frame of mind.there's a different goals when, as opposed to doing. actual visual effects execution. You're telling the story of what you did, which is you're, you're basically trying to put on your documentarian hat. Uh, there could be many reasons why you're doing a breakdown. You're trying to, show for archival reasons, what was done for the shot. You're trying to show the general public. how the shot came together. You're doing it for awards considerations. There's a lot of different reasons, but generally speaking.

You're trying to tell the story and what is, unique about this show show, what is unique about this show that, um, that required the visual effects department to get involved and the one size fits all methodology, uh, for various projects of doing breakdowns typically doesn't work, uh, kind of like doing the actual visual effects, you can't necessarily use the same formula because every show is going to have its different challenges and, uh, roadblocks and, innovations. So in one particular show, you could be showing off how dramatically different the original photography is from the final image that you saw in the movie theater and sometimes a simple A to B, wipe from plate to final shot is enough and others, particularly with all CG sequences, it's very hard.

To, to kind of tell the story visually, especially if you don't have any narration or any way to supplement the actual imagery. So, you know, we, we, we always talk about, okay, well, do we start with wireframes? Do we, do we do the gray shaded simulations? Do we show stuff against gray? Do we do slap comps? It's different for every project. So there is no one template and typically it's a collaboration between the visual effects. Teams, compositing, FX, lighting, uh, environments and editorial, because there's certain things that editorial can do in the Avid that is way faster than us trying to do that in Nuke or in Katana or anything like that.

Any of our standard visual effects tools. so it's a, it's a, it's a tight collaboration. I love working on breakdowns and uh, where, at least for me, I'm always trying to find a new and interesting way to tell our story.

[00:06:58] Rob Bredow: I remember before I worked at ILM, watching ILM's breakdowns, some of which Todd did, some of which many of the other artists and compositors did, and editorial teams did at ILM, and feeling like they were really a model of storytelling, of how these shots came together. I think the first time I remember seeing, like, the, all the elements drop in one at a time, I was kind of blown away because It's a lot of work to render all those individual elements out, right?

And to, to make special elements just for the breakdown. So you have to invest if you're going to do that kind of visual storytelling. But also, like those A to B wipes that are showing before and afters, those, even the very simplest version, uh, tend to be really good. They tend to give you a lot of great information and I, I really appreciate, for example, the before and after reels that we get to have at the Academy now, in the bake off process that otherwise you just walk in, they just give you so much information.

It's just such a nice way of communicating the work that was done.

[00:07:52] Jenny Ely: Next up we have Charandeep Basuta, I hope I am pronouncing that correctly. I recently watched The Agency and was very impressed by the camera work. Only after racking my brains trying to figure out how a few scenes were shot with a camera outside a multi story London skyscraper, I figured they must have used a volume, and it turns out they did.

How is the volume evolving to accommodate a tighter integration with more complex sets like this, and conversely, do those sets need to take VFX work into consideration?

[00:08:23] Rob Bredow: This is a perfect question and a perfect segue to our main topic today, which is all about virtual production and our StageCraft crews. It can pop up a volume like the one that was built on the agency. Shivani or Justin, do you want to just talk a little bit about the onset integration and especially moving into a set like this, which has an LED wall constructed around it?

What are some of the considerations?

[00:08:44] Shivani Jhaveri: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I know Justin could talk a lot about onset to integration because that's kind of, our bread and butter of what we're trying to do every day and make that blend between the set and the virtual world seamless. and the goal is obviously ultimately for the viewer when they're watching the final product to not know the difference, right.

And feel fully immersed in that environment, for, you know, For the sets that we get to work on and how intricate and detailed they are. It's so fun because we get to put in that same level of detail into the virtual backgrounds. Um, and so the world building becomes so exciting in these sets where, you know, you're not just limited by what you see on the set, but the actors are honestly playing off of what's on the screens as well, because they're fully immersed in this. Huge environment around them, um, which, you know, before, before volume technology, a lot of that was actors trying to. You know, imagine what, what, where am I? Like if I have a blue screen behind me, I need to immerse myself in an environment, but a lot of it's up to the imagination. Whereas when putting these characters in a volume and they have the opportunity to play against the environment, you definitely see a different performance and there's a whole different environment, not just for the actors, but for the crew themselves.

[00:10:08] Justin Talley: Yeah, one of the things I loved about that show, because I also just finished watching it, we're so, the use case there is so story oriented, solution oriented, that there's a lot of paranoia in the show. And so there's glass walls between people. and there's always those moments of like, are they listening to me while I'm on it?

Is that who's watching me while I'm on this phone call? And so you wanted everything to be made out of glass and the cameras. It's also got that energy of like somebody's life is on the line every five seconds. So it's these fast moving, steady cam shots that whip 180 degrees to follow a new character as they enter the room. And all of that, if you didn't have the LED wall, there would be a nightmare, right? You're like, uh, I got, you know, I've, I want this to all be made of glass, but maybe do we compromise and not have this made of glass? Um, there's so many different times of day and you're in that set so frequently that keeping it alive, the sort of keep alive of the set, whether it's, uh, plates, you know, uh, array plates that have been captured, oftentimes we'll augment those things with a little bit of 3d on top of it. So you've got some control, some lights and planes you can trigger to keep it feeling fresh and not, like a loop. but yeah, I mean, it is complex with a set like that. tracking the camera becomes more complex. You've got lower ceilings. You're trying to hide whatever technology you're using to track, you know, to not replace one problem for your visual effects supervisor with a different problem. Um, and we've gotten very, very good at this. uh, we've done a lot of this sort of pop up deployment in a fully built, fully enclosed practical set. and the key is just what you said. It's integration and collaboration. when you run into a roadblock and you don't know what the answer is. One of the quickest ways to get to the answer that you want is go talk to the key grip, go talk to the head of construction, because they, this is their world, they've solved these problems before, and so coming up with solutions, you know, we were racking our brains trying to figure out how do we get all these mocap cameras installed in this set and then get them out fast,

[00:12:19] Rob Bredow: Mm

[00:12:19] Justin Talley: and we're like, Oh, hey, uh, Bud, who is the key grip on, on the Mandoverse, who we know well, and our capture supervisor, Mike Foster, we're talking and then we're like, Hey Bud, um, How would you, if you had something you had to get in and out of here super fast, how would you do it?

And he's like, Oh, just immediately has the answer to all of our problems

[00:12:39] Rob Bredow: he's got stuff on his truck

[00:12:40] Justin Talley: already a

[00:12:41] Rob Bredow: it. Yes. Mm

[00:12:43] Shivani: hundred percent. So, um, that is oftentimes the key to our successes. We're a department, like any other department, and we're part of the show, and we're trying to solve the same problems, and so, building those friendships, leaning on those collaborators, because we are now sort of fully in their world, that they've been solving these problems for over a hundred years, and that, you know, chain of information can, as soon as they get their brain wrapped around our weird little problem, you know, I've got these weird little cameras I got to put everywhere. Yeah, so, absolutely. Like with many things in virtual production, it is to collaborate with your other departments and, and, and integrate, and that'll be your sort of path to success.

[00:13:25] Todd Vaziri: One thing I wanted to add about the agency is that like the alternatives and speaking of like a hundred, a hundred years of cinema that like, well, what would have been the alternatives to using an LED wall for something like the agency? with the, um, instructions that there had to be, this is a heavily glass, uh, set.

We're going to see through many, many layers of glass and also the frenetic camera work. We're not going to have a lock off. So we're not, we're going to have a very free and frenetic camera. What would have been the alternatives, uh, without led technology, uh, with the screens and everything and StageCraft and the two that come to mind very quickly are either a painted backdrop or a trans light, which is similar to a painted backdrop, but it's backlit.

So you can get really, really bright, uh, pin lights and, and actually sort of use it as a light source, but not necessarily as bright as, uh. You know, the sun, or even our led screens and which would have given, you know, a certain amount of, uh, fidelity in camera, but nowhere near the flexibility

[00:14:30] Rob Bredow: right

[00:14:30] Todd Vaziri: being able to put up any image back there anytime of day and trigger events for even actors to actually look at and, react to, um, you know, there it's, it's what an incredible, uh, melding Of here, here are the parameters of what we're going to do for this show. How can we make this work? And you really, really made it work for that.

[00:14:52] Rob Bredow: That's a really great example. And, you heard a couple of terms as, Shivani and Justin were walking through that. this is a, what we call a pop up volume, which means it wasn't permanently installed. So they built the set and then we popped up the LEDs around it in just a few days. Actually, is a huge wall. but it got installed very, very quickly. Cause time is money on a set. You don't want to rent a stage, for any more days than you need to. And then the LEDs were able to provide not all the lighting, but a component of the lighting, and then, uh, Justin was mentioning, well, I'm sure we're going to talk about this more today, you know, tracking the camera. You might think of it as, as Todd was just describing as a painting and it is kind of like a painting, but it's a virtual painting that we have 3D control over. And Justin was alluding to multiple layers. So as the camera moves around, even if everything is essentially at infinity, right? How close are those buildings?

How much parallax are you getting? Maybe not much at all. But one thing that can kind of give away a translight or a painted backing. As you're trucking towards the backing, your mind can feel that that painting may only be 10 feet or 20 feet away from the glass because it doesn't have the correct, lack of movement for the distance it should have, right? But by tracking the camera and knowing where it is, we can reproject that virtual window back there to be the right distance away, which is a long ways away in the case of skyscrapers, right? In the London skyline. Um, so you get that very authentic feel for the kind of dynamic camera moves that they wanted to be able to do on the agency.

So this. It's a really great example of the right tool for the job. Hopefully that'll be a theme we talk about. Because this is not a one size fits all technology. We'll talk about places where you should not use LEDs. We definitely, even though we I mean, we didn't just invent this, but we had a lot to do with the invention of this technology.

We do not recommend it in all cases, but it's really a great tool for certain applications. And I think the agency is a great question to kick us off on this conversation.

[00:16:42] Set Smarts

[00:16:42] Rob Bredow: So we're going to try a new feature before we dive into the main virtual production topic, uh, with Shivani and Justin today, it's called set smarts.

And this is a recommendation on set, like creature comfort, a quality of life improvement that the two of you spend a lot of time on set. And what is something that you've learned from that time? And you can bring to our listeners who might be, you know, heading out in the set in the future. So, uh, Shivani, why don't we start with you?

[00:17:07] Shivani Jhaveri: The biggest one for me that I think I take to every set is the importance of knowing people in other departments. And I think, um, it sounds obvious, but it's often something that gets overlooked, especially with the chaos of your day to day on set. Every day you step on set, it's a new set of challenges.

You don't know what's going to be thrown at you. No day is the same on set. Um, there's, it's always going to be kind of a new rollercoaster that you're on. An important thing I think that has been valuable for me throughout the years is making sure I have that point of contact in every department. you notice that you work with so many departments on any given day. We see that in visual effects as well, but when you're on set, you're interfacing with maybe 10 departments a day. And it might be from the AD department, you might be interfacing with the camera department, as Justin mentioned earlier, the grips, and there's, there's just so many different folks involved in making this. successful and you're all working together in a very, very kind of ornately curated show in order for the day to run smoothly and everyone's trying to make their day. So, my biggest thing is just making sure you get to know people in every department and make sure, you know, whether it's introducing yourself and not just that, you know, them, but that they know who you are

[00:18:30] Rob Bredow: Mm hmm.

[00:18:31] Shivani Jhaveri: important, especially when you're walking onto a new set.

Yeah. It's very important for people to know kind of what your role is in this set and when they should be coming to you for things and, you know, vice versa. So that's my biggest one. And then the same thing goes for crafty as well. You need to know who the point of contact is at crafty because they will absolutely go to the back of the truck and get you a green juice every morning if they know you well. And that

[00:18:56] Rob Bredow: fantastic.

[00:18:56] Shivani Jhaveri: That is a great tip.

[00:18:58] Justin Talley: Oh yeah.

[00:18:58] Rob Bredow: Uh, for somebody who's never worked on set and never heard the term crafty before, uh, Shivani, tell us what crafty is.

[00:19:03] Shivani Jhaveri: Yeah. So craft services, um, it's the wonderful people that keep us fed every single day. they have a whole section on set where they have snacks and drinks and late night meals as well. And they kind of make sure that the crew is taken care of and fed throughout the day. They're wonderful and not appreciated enough.

So, um, Get to know them. And as you do, you know, they will absolutely treat you to the back of the truck.

[00:19:31] Rob Bredow: It's great. Yeah. When some people point out that craft services has credits in the movie and sometimes are maybe scoffing at the length of the credits in the movie. I am right with you there. Like those people who are doing that hard work every day and keeping the crew fed are as much a part of that crew as anybody else, as much as us, as much as a director of photography, that it's such an important part.

And also, as you're talking about the relationships and the friendships you form across departments end up being an important part of the filmmaking process. Love that. Justin

[00:20:01] Justin Talley: Um, Can I do two?

[00:20:03] Rob Bredow: Oh, please.

[00:20:04] Justin Talley: Okay. Um, I could do a whole episode about this. Um, I think about it a lot. so number one, this is to piggyback off of previous episodes, this is a callback, for the chair that you bring with you on set. I, the DP on our show, had this chair, bought this chair and, uh, he was talking to all of us about it and we're all sort of like, yeah, yeah. And he's like, sit in it. And I sat in the chair and I was like, oh man, I need this. So, uh, I ended up buying this chair. The tag line for the chair is buy once, cry once it is not cheap. Um, but, uh, um, it's called a Viper chair and it's got big casters that are locking a lot of times our sets are, you know, they might even be tilted.

Like you never know with an led volume. You never know what is, you know, a mine, a desert, a building, uh, you know, wreckage. So having this chair so I can scoot around and still, still do my job. Amazing. Um, the other one, and this one, I cannot overstate enough. And again, I think people scoff when I say it, invest in the earpiece for your comms.

[00:21:13] Rob Bredow: Right.

[00:21:14] Justin Talley: Um, you will never regret it. It's, you have to do it every day. Those things that they come with are uncomfortable. They're annoying. But for relatively little money, you can get, uh, one sculpted to your ear. And so when I put that thing in, I don't even notice it. You know, that has ceased to be a bother of my day. And literally people will be complaining about this for 10 years.

[00:21:37] Rob Bredow: Oh yeah.

[00:21:38] Justin Talley: And you're like, just do something about it. You know?

[00:21:41] Rob Bredow: Justin, I've gotta get your link for the custom , sculpted because I, I always go around to the ADs because they usually have slightly better ones. I'm like, Oh, can I get that one? And like, I'm always chasing the slightly better one. I just need to do the proper upgrade, Justin. I'm getting the link. Or, maybe we'll put it in the show notes for anyone who's listening.

[00:21:57] Justin Talley: I got you.

[00:21:57] Rob Bredow: And you know, you're talking about a chair. This is, um, the amount of time that you spend standing on set cannot be overstated. You know, these are 10 hour days. If things are going well, sometimes they're longer, and it's all on your feet, and there's rarely enough chairs to go around. Uh, so having a place to sit down is really, really helpful. Thanks, Justin. Thanks, Shivani. I think Todd, you wanted to jump in with something.

[00:22:19] Todd Vaziri: wanted to piggyback on something Shivani said with understanding, you know, the, uh, getting to know all the other departments and, you know, things go wrong on set. Things have to be, you have to improvise. Everybody is improvising and sometimes things slow to a halt. I mean, uh, if for a layperson to, come onto set, they may be fooled into thinking, wow, what's going on?

This is really boring. Nobody's doing anything. Well, that's usually because something has gone wrong. And what I wanted to add to it is, when things go wrong, the compassion and empathy that you would have for the other departments, Van Ling once told me, you know, when things go wrong, 99 percent of the time, you're sitting around waiting for one person to do their job. 1 percent of the time you're that person. It's gonna happen to you. All eyes are going to be on you to fix something, to make it something work. So when it's the 99 percent of the time, a little bit of grace will go a long way. You know, don't, don't be playing the blame game or anything like that, or develop anger at different departments.

It's going to happen to you. So be cool with it.

[00:23:25] Rob Bredow: That's for sure. as you get to know your way around the set and other departments, you get to know when it's your time to help out. Um, when you got that problem and when it's your time to just get out of the way and let the experts do their job. You know, if the grips are rigging something up, you just know that is their world and there's nothing I can do that's even 1 percent effective.

I would only get in their way. But sometimes, uh, you can actually be a real help. You can be, you can be seeing they're doing a big lighting rig and we're on an led stage and Justin can walk over to the DP and say like, Hey, I can also offer you this. Do you want to audition? There's something on the thing.

I can have it ready for you in two minutes and you know, it might be a 20 minute rig and DP might be like, Yeah, yeah, show that to me while we keep going. Uh, and then, you know, two minutes later, maybe a 20 minute problem is solved. And then you've contributed to whatever that longest pole in the tent is, uh, and kept the day moving, which is, you know, lovely when you're able to be proactive in that way. Such a good point.

[00:24:17] Shivani Jhaveri: And you actually bring up a really good, another tip there, Rob, which is, Make sure you're very aware of your body language on set because, um, being in the wrong place on set is takes two seconds for someone to call you out for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. it sounds a little crazy, but because there's, you know, over 100 people on the set, how is someone going to notice just me standing in this one place?

But, um, it's pretty wild how quickly you could spot someone that it's their first time. On the set just by where they're standing. Um, it's, it's very, you know, it's very black and white on, you know, where you should and shouldn't be on a set. And I think that's a really, really important thing to keep in mind.

You know, stay clear of the shot. Stay clear of the set if you don't need to be there. Only be in places that you need to be at the right time. If you need to talk to someone, get in and out as quickly as possible. the body language factor is key.

[00:25:12] Rob Bredow: That's such an important point. And for those who haven't spent a lot of time on set, Shivani, why is it, like, both such a sign of respect or lack of respect or knowledge, uh, but also, like, why is it so important? Because it's not just about people's ego, it's actually about how the day is going to get done and, and who can see what at what time, right?

[00:25:30] Shivani Jhaveri: Yeah, exactly. You're moving at such a fast pace on set and there's always someone looking at the shot. As someone is always framing up on a shot, looking through the camera to shot, there could be someone miles away on an iPad looking at the shot, you know, in the huge shows that we're working on, there's always a shot being set up for or framed up.

And because of that fast paced environment, you need to be able to be. In a place that you're not being prohibitive to all the departments kind of working together and cohesion. If you're in the wrong place, you might be delaying them being able to get the right framing. Or if you're talking to the wrong person, you might be delaying that person from talking to the DP about setting up a shot. And so it's kind of like, I know when I can go over and talk to Justin, because if Justin's over there with one of our DPs, he's busy. It means that they're about to set up for a shot and I don't want to get in the middle of that. So it's just knowing the right time to talk to your own team members as well.

if they're right in the middle of setting up for a shot, you're, you can't delay that.

[00:26:32] Rob Bredow: That's really smart.

[00:26:34] Shivani: there's also health and safety requirements. Like they'll say at the beginning of the day, Oh, Hey, we've got a 50 foot techno, make sure you talk to this person before you're going to go under it. Da da da. And if you haven't been on set before, or you're arriving midday and didn't hear that briefing, it could be easy to miss the importance of this.

[00:26:48] Rob Bredow: But you know, checking with a crane operator before you duck under a techno crane is not just a common courtesy. It's also really important. Cause that thing weighs a ton. I don't know if it literally weighs a ton. It probably does. you do not want that thing coming down on your head. And the people that walk under that. while the crane operator is doing something with it, and they have to very quickly make that person safe. And that's a real physical operation on their part. Uh, and the courtesy you're, and the professionalism you're showing when you look at the person, make eye contact, and go, Is it okay if I go through here?

That person gives you the thumbs up, you cross under safely. It, I mean, it makes things go faster, but it's also like, it's actual real serious safety stuff at times.

[00:27:23] Virtual Production

[00:27:23] Rob Bredow: Well, we've already started diving into some of these details, which I love. Um, I think people are going to want to know about your specific roles on set.

There's a number of jobs in the StageCraft virtual production team and you've each served in multiple roles, but why don't you just talk about the main role or the most recent roles you've held and what that means. Um, Justin, why don't you get us started?

[00:27:43] Justin Talley: Sure, Um, I'm currently serving as a virtual production supervisor. Um, I've been doing that job for a while. I see my job primarily as functioning as the key point person, for our department, um, outward facing to other heads of department on set. so, I'm the sort of the person that the DP, visual effects supervisor, production designer, art director would come to if there's something that they need from the virtual production department. Um, I also sort of function again, because my background is traditional film production as a translator. Um, I sort of take gear head and I translate it into tech head. Um, and, and I try to help find the path internally to, okay, this is the ask. This is the part of our department who hits that ask, another part of my job, which this I learned from my team, um, and, and one of the great. experiences I had was starting in StageCraft right at the very beginning, not in a supervisory role, so I got to watch a lot of people develop their methodology, another part of my job is to ask the question behind the question of the person who's trying to get us to do something, so that I can hopefully illuminate what the real goal is, what are they really trying to accomplish. Beyond that, my job is to wear a smartwatch and the widget in the center of my smartwatch is a timer, the stopwatch, because it's also my job to be the key point person to the first AD whose job it is to keep the set moving. And so when the DP says, Hey, I want you to do X, I translate that into the request for the department.

And then I asked the department. How long is that going to take? Um, translate that into a minute value and then deliver that minute value to the ADs to make sure that I'm keeping us honest, just like every other department. This is going to take us 10 minutes. This is going to, you know, and then also figure out how much do I need to pad? Because the thing that we've been asked to do is something no one's ever asked anyone to do before. Um, and so are we exploring new space or is this something that we know? and then I time, whatever we do so that I can start developing methodology, you know, timing methodology around new. Things because we so frequently are doing something new and it's like, Oh, okay.

What this, okay. That is a seven minute ask. Um, so I can go forward with that. And also, I am. collaborating with Shivani, with our producer, to figure out sort of, is this within the scope of what we thought we were doing? Um, if a hot ask comes through that's going to have staffing implications, you know, tech implications, whatever that is, so we can help sort of collaborate and coordinate because it is, we are a part of such a large apparatus. Other departments, the content team, engineering. Um, and especially around the development, again, of something new, it's a much larger effort that, um, I'm just one small piece of, um, and that I have to coordinate those, those efforts with Shivani and, and the company at large.

[00:30:47] Rob Bredow: That's great. Thank you so much for that. And you said, first AD and you described that that's the person who's driving the day forward. Um, AD stands for assistant director and they are a very, very important person on set. They have a very clear idea of what the goals are for the day and making the day, getting the day's work done every day is the job of lets everybody on set.

But the first AD is the one who's, uh, Facilitating, making all that happen. So I've known a first AD or two, when you said, just give me five minutes to, uh, start a stopwatch in your face and say, you got it. You got 4:58, make it happen. And I don't know if that's started doing that same thing to understand the real cadence of how important a minute is on set.

[00:31:28] Justin Talley: That's correct. Uh, I time myself because I know they're timing me.

[00:31:32] Rob Bredow: Uh

[00:31:32] Justin Talley: And so, especially if I said 10 minutes and at about seven minutes, they're like, Hey, are you done yet? I can go, no, I still got three minutes left.

[00:31:41] Rob Bredow: That's right Um, and they're not doing that to be mean. They're doing that because they've got a very busy job. And, you know, I remember standing in Yankee stadium, um, and we had 3, 000 extras and, the AD. five cameras. I was working on anger management, this Adam Sandler comedy from years ago. And I was responsible for crowd duplication in the background. And we had some extra cameras, and I'm like, oh, I need this camera here. I remember saying, I just need five minutes, and I can get this plate, and then we don't have to move the extras later, because it would take like an hour to move extras. And I said this to the AD, and first. The AD appreciated the fact that I was trying to protect him for the next shot. But he's like, I can't give you five minutes because this is a $500,000 or an $800,000 night. And five minutes is, he'd already done the math in his head. And he's like, and we're going to be back with the crowd in this position tomorrow night. You're going to have fewer extras, but it's expensive to wait this whole shoot. for you for five minutes. And very quickly, he just educated me as to why five minutes is such a big deal on set. You know, at half a million dollars a day, five minutes is, uh, spendy. So you don't want to ask for that unless you need it. Unless you can really bring enough value. Five minutes of value to the screen, which you can sometimes. Okay, uh, Shivani, your role.

[00:32:51] Shivani Jhaveri: I'm a producer with the stagecraft team, and I've also, you know, worked in the visual effects side at ILM. I started on the visual effects side, and then I migrated over to the virtual production side. And now I'm kind of, you know, doing projects and both. But specifically on the virtual production side, I always see my role as a bridge between the creative vision of the filmmakers and what they want to accomplish and the technical Piece of what our ILM folks are going to deliver on and being able to kind of bridge that gap. And we always say, we want you to come to us with, what do you want? And then we will figure out how to do it.

You know, we say the same thing in the VFX world. Like our goal is to be at the cutting edge of technology and we'll figure out how to. Accomplish these goals. So a big piece of my role is at the beginning of each of these projects, it's kind of, what is that creative storytelling that you're trying to accomplish with this project?

Like, what are the environments that you're trying to build? And then, you know, I work with Justin and the team to kind of put, put a team together, put a virtual production team together, of artists that can build those environments and then put a stage team together to execute on those environments so that they can kind of go out there and shoot, on the day and be really successful.

And a lot of that is, um, working with the show producers, the, The overall producers on the show who handle kind of the final budget of the film and working to fit into their box. There are some productions that we have the luxury of working on, like some of these Lucasfilm episodic projects where they're so heavily invested in virtual production, we can put up these massive volumes and create amazing worlds.

And, you know, it's really like that. buffet menu of all of the different things you could want in virtual production, and they're so open to us kind of coming to the table with all of these new options. And at the same time, there's smaller projects where they're kind of like we have this one problem, and we're really trying to figure out, like, how do we fix this one thing? And we can kind of come up, maybe pop up a wall for that one set and they can maybe get all those shots in camera rather than having to go with a more expensive solution. And then, know, we can solve their problem that way. So my job as a producer is really to figure out what that need is from the client and find creative solutions in order to kind of execute on that stuff.

And oftentimes, you know, for a long run of shows, maybe we're on a project for six months. It becomes kind of a day to day thing where. Maybe problems will come up as we're shooting or filming and they say, you know, the schedule has changed for the sixth time now, and we can no longer get this location on that date. Can we maybe shoot this on the volume instead? And can we actually, you know, get this in, this happens more than you might think, whether it's weather delays or, you know, the crew didn't make their day the previous week. So we don't have that location anymore. and then. What we might have is just a pano and a pano is really just a, think of it as kind of like a 360 picture and maybe we just have a pano from that location, but we can put that pano up on a volume and you can kind of use that interactive lighting onto your characters to recreate a scene that you may have shot a couple of weeks ago at a different location, but you could still imitate that scene almost exactly on the volume.

And, you know. Justin and I have dealt with a number of those types of situations where they just can't go back, but we can replicate it almost exactly for them. There was a moment recently where they were looking at two monitors and they had the dailies playing back on one monitor of what they had shot a few weeks back.

And then they had, you know, the live camera view. And it was amazing. There were people walking up saying they couldn't tell the difference

[00:36:43] Rob Bredow: Nice.

[00:36:44] Shivani Jhaveri: were doing and the volume. And when you see that, when you see the Usefulness of that tool and how you can recreate something that's so fresh that you just did Um, you really start to realize all of the possibilities there, right? and we always talk about magic hour on the volume and how special it can be on the volume because Magic hour only lasts a certain amount of minutes in real world, but we always talk about how we get to live in magic hour all the time, uh, which we absolutely love. And so a lot of times you shoot the best sunset in the world and you know, you have your actors and it's the best moment.

And being able to recreate that just by shooting that pano when you're there on the day, and then being able to throw that up on a volume and being able to. Go back to that moment and do pick up lines or, you know, be able to introduce new characters to that scene. It's a very, very special use case that we utilize all the time.

[00:37:37] Todd Vaziri: So cool. I have a question. Um, historically with industrial light and magic with our computer graphics, digital effects, and animation, we're always trying to find ways of making things more efficient, you know, get our render times down, get the turnarounds really, you know, to a reasonable amount. And what stage craft, uh, has forced us to do is to totally change. The way we look at how we create pixels, not just fast turnaround with, it has to be real time and the, colliding of worlds between real time, and I'm going to just say gaming, because when you work in gaming, You know, the, the whole idea behind getting the good imagery out is that it has to be performant.

It has to be instantly accessible to the camera. and that's a clash of, of, uh, methodologies. And I wanted to ask, in the years that we've been doing stagecraft. How has the almost collision between the old school brute force rendering methodology and our real time efforts and being able to track the camera, track the environment, um, in, instantly, it's like, it's like beyond real time and all the issues of latency. How has that changed over the years, uh, with the system?

[00:38:56] Justin Talley: Um, without getting too tech heavy, we definitely started out with having to be very, very cautious and very, very like forward thinking in our budget rendering wise. What is going to be 2D? What is going to be 3D? Is the lighting going to be baked? What can remain live? How do we do that? Um, working in a very disciplined way, which had a lot of benefits unto itself, that sort of level of discipline. Um, this is the area where we need the, control. And this is what we're going to shoot. Um, as processors become more powerful and we have incredible engineering and technology folks in this company who have continued to, uh, squeeze more power out of what we have find new ways to, distribute the load, um, switch things from like, we have a whole process where when we initially receive an environment, our team puts it up on the wall and we put up stats and we go through the process of figuring out where are we, we call it profiling, right?

Performance profiling and we go through and sort of check all those things, start tweaking knobs and dials to figure out like, where can we sacrifice this, that, the other, the work that our, Teams have done to improve that horsepower to squeeze every last drop of horsepower out of what we have, has so fundamentally changed the way that we work that it's pretty crazy.

We went from a world of approaching this. with a very, 2 D mindset. How we're gonna correct the image. So, you know, there's a monitor that we have on set, myself, our on set colorist, the visual effects supervisor, the director of photography, the gaffer. We'll all be standing around looking at this thing, sort of judging the image, right? Is that right? Do we believe it? Is it good? And we started out in a very comp mindset of this, this is the frame, this is the shot. And to your point about that sort of collision of the gaming mindset. Um, and, and then also just, I think it's this, the cinematography, photo, real photography mindset, all colliding in one space is that, um, what we all realized pretty quickly, what we wanted to do is light the scene. Not color correct it. If we could, if we could avoid it, let's light the scene with lights because that's what they're doing. They're lighting the set with lights and it has consequences. They put a light there and now this pillar casts a shadow over there. Well, I've got those pillars. I want to light that and cast that shadow so that this is all making sense when they flip the key light, dah, dah, dah, dah, right? the most, the fastest, the best version is we're taking our cues from what they're doing practically. And, on the last couple of shows. Having that overhead, the performance budget overhead to keep these scenes live lit to light them with lights, to, to approach it as a lighting exercise, um, has been extraordinary.

We move faster. The DPs can speak their language with no interruption. I want, uh, you know, a narrow, you know, a Lico, which is, you know, ellipsoidal, a very narrow beam light. This was, uh, one of your previous guests, Dean Cundey, we had this moment where Dean was like, I want a light raking on the back of that set because he had the armorer and, and it was becoming very tone on tone.

Her helmet and this, this cave were becoming sort of tone on tone. And he's like, I want a light raking that back wall to pop her out. But I know you guys can't do that. And I was like, wait, we can do that. And We put a light out, we raked it along the back wall. And I saw that moment, which is my favorite thing. Uh, about the job is to see the moment when somebody gets on board with the magic trick

[00:42:53] Todd Vaziri: Mhmm.

[00:42:53] Justin Talley: and, and immediately there was a tonal shift. The ADs came in and they're like, Hey, we got to move to me and Dean stepped in and he was like, we're, we're lighting and it was immediate. Now we're lighting.

Right. And so he's giving us all lighting notes, just exactly as if we're a part of the team. We're putting slashes of light on the background, following through the scheme of light that the gaffer is doing. That. Um, so it's been a huge change and, um, and it keeps becoming more and more, sort of in keeping with, I think, our central ethos, which is, as Shivani said, filmmakers come to us with what is the thing they're trying to do and I love it when the thing that they tell us to do is literally just exactly what we're doing.

I'm not doing a lot of translating. It's like, Oh, Hey, yeah, we're going to take a key light and we're going to slash it across that wall back there and narrow the beam and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can just take exactly their notes or have the gaffer just talk directly to the operators. Um, that has been a huge change, right?

I'm not, I don't have to say, well, actually what we're going to do is we're going to, um, re render, we're going to move some lights around and then we're going to, you know, re render this and,

[00:44:03] Rob Bredow: Use a comp trick for this

[00:44:04] Justin Talley: Yeah.

[00:44:05] Rob Bredow: The, um, when you're talking about profiling and the compute infrastructure, without going into a ton of detail, this is much more than, uh, one very high powered computer or a high powered computer with even several GPUs. This is an array of machines, right?

Powering tens of thousands of pixels in real time at 24 frames per second at very low latency, right? So this is a. A very complicated supercomputer or array of computers to try to profile and control. So your, your team has to be an expert in all that

[00:44:34] Justin Talley: We have, yeah, again, we have incredible onset engineers as well. Um, I'm very blessed to not have to be anywhere close to the smartest person in the room, which I am fully aware that I am not. Um, and, and so we have incredible, yeah, incredible engineers, incredible operators who, who understand how to manage that much horsepower, um, in, very, I mean, you're, as we've been talking about, this is all set real time, right? The clock is ticking every moment of every day on everything that you're doing and you just got to get it done, you know? So, getting through that, um, and managing that massive system, um, you know, we do it every time. So it's great.

[00:45:14] Rob Bredow: I love the fact that this is a very, very complicated system and the goal, and actually a large part of your job is to insulate the production from all this complexity. It's just a tool and we wanna find the best tool for the job. And, uh, but you don't always have a ton of prep time. You don't always have people who have done a ton of work on the LED volume today. Um, sometimes people have other experiences, but many times you might be coming into an LED volume for the very first time, or certainly ours. I'm reminded of that Spielberg show, where I think they just had a couple of days on the volume. and they had a lot of work to do. And I think the prep time kept getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed where you guys, it had to work.

And I know you and Pablo felt a little bit of pressure, uh, on a big show coming in pretty hot.

[00:45:58] Justin Talley: That's right. Um, it was, uh, You know, I'd still have a hard time processing that it happened. Um, because it was like in the span of, I think it was, my memory is telling me it was three days. I met Pablo Helman. And so my head is already sort of spinning.

[00:46:18] Rob Bredow: ILM Visual Effects supervisor, yes.

[00:46:19] Justin Talley: ILM visual effects supervisor, Paul Helman. So I meet him and he's on a mission, right?

He's shooting the movie. I'm new. He's not new. Right? So he comes in. He's like, boom, we got to do this, but how about it? bring the car in. This is a car sequence. Um, they've already filmed the plates for this sequence and it's a sequence where a lot of stuff happens. They had already done an SFX gag where a light pole. Blows over their sparks flying everywhere in the plates and they're driving toward a tornado. So it's chaotic. The plates that they shot so he comes in. He's talking through everything that we got to do with me. And then he says to me, um, Janusz is going to be coming in very soon. And he's not convinced this is going to work. And I was sort of like, Ohh, um, so the next person who comes in is Janusz Kaminski, the DP. Um, and as said before, I was DP before I did this. So Janusz Kaminski is definitely up in a pantheon for me. So meeting him was startling and, and I was a little, um, dry mouth and right away, right away he comes in and he's like, this isn't going to work. I don't know why we're doing this is a terrible idea.

[00:47:27] Rob Bredow: And this before you'd even gotten a chance to show him who he's just, I mean, he's coming in hot from having to shoot all these other things, not having enough prep time.

[00:47:35] Justin Talley: That's correct. And there, you know, again, they're in the middle of this shoot. They've like, they've been doing long days coming up to this. Um, also we had met their camera department, if the AC is the day before the camera assistants they were like, buckle up. That was, they had that, they just said that to me, buckle up. So, so he came in pretty hot and, um, and, and of course what he walked into was the, the plates in their neutral state.

[00:48:01] Todd Vaziri: Mmm

[00:48:02] Justin Talley: flat looking. Um, they really, we really haven't dialed them yet to match anything. We didn't have the camera up yet. We're working on that. And, um, and our colorist, uh, Smack ILM colorist, um, had jumped in. Uh, right away and was like, Hey, can we just show it to you? You know, uh, you look through the camera, look through the monitor, because that's one of the things about virtual production, it's hard to wrap your brain around. We say it all the time. Don't trust your eyes. This whole magic trick is designed to fool the camera. If it fools you great, but it's designed to, to be a magic trick for the camera. And then therefore the viewer. So he's like, can we show it to you through the lens, through, through a monitor? And he's like, all right. And he sits down and we get it up and I go over and I align, I have an iPad that I can control a lot of things about the volume with. So I align the plate, we get it, you know, the correct orientation, driving path, playback smack just starts dialing through the contrast, the saturation, color temperature, um, and talking Janusz through the amount of sort of, DI, you know, Digital Intermediate Color Correction Suite controls he has in real time. And I, I'm watching Janusz, and I see the moment, his glasses are up on his head, and then he like pulls his glasses down, leans toward the monitor. And then he hollers to the SFX guys to spray down the window. they come out of the Hudson sprayer, which is like their sort of handheld water sprayer. They spray the window down. We got water droplets on the window and you can now see the moment where boom, the pole blows, the lights go scattering across. You see the reflections and all of the beads of glass. And he. Yeah, he leans forward. He claps his hands super hard and then immediately starts like, we've now moved through we're through the looking glass. Now we're a part of the team. Right. And he's like, all right, I want more contrast to the bop, bop, bop, bop. And then, and he's, he's hollering out directions to the gaffer to us. Um, and we're just a part of the team and like, he's on board. We know we never go back to that moment of this isn't going to work.

Right.

[00:50:13] Todd Vaziri: so cool!

[00:50:14] Justin Talley: Um, which was an amazing moment to be a part of. And then hours later. Steven Spielberg comes in and then they were, when we, the shoot was like six hours, it wasn't even a whole day. at the end of the thing, they're like, all right, cut, uh, moving on next. And they breeze out of there. And I was bubbling like a tea kettle. Like I could not sleep all night. Um, it was incredible.

[00:50:39] Rob Bredow: This is, I don't know if we said it, this is the Fablemans, that big twister sequence, right? In that car. And the reason Pablo was pitching that StageCraft might be the right tool for the job was exactly what you just described. All that reflection, the water on the windshields, of course, it could have been done with all CG, but it would have been a lot of heavy lifting.

And here is a six hour solution. That got them, if not all, a huge percentage of the shots in camera to be finished and dropped into the movie. Um, okay, we're running out of time. I want to keep talking for hours, but, um, maybe Shivani, you could just, uh, just very briefly. We've talked a lot about where it is the right tool for the job, and we've said the right tool for the job a few times. maybe a couple of highlights where somebody might come to you saying, Hey, I want to use StageCraft led for this. And you'd say, no, no, no, we should, we should go outside. No, no, no. We should do it this way. What are just a couple of highlights and we probably don't have time to dive into all the details, but, um, we recommend it for maybe a quarter of the times people come to us.

And, and what are some of the things that you can just easily rule out?

[00:51:37] Shivani Jhaveri: Yeah, I mean, it's an ever evolving technology, right? I mean, we are constantly figuring out new ways on how to make it work. But as you said, a lot of times we'll get a script or a scene and they'll ask us to do a breakdown. Tell us where it works. Tell us where it doesn't work. And a lot of the just clear outliers of when it's not going to work are situations where you have. a ton of hero background that you need in a character and you need them to be really close and you know this traditionally you might do a VFX, blue screen, digital doubles, build it out in the background. We have been able to become very, very successful in getting a lot more, you know, high fidelity DDs in the background, but when they're very, very close to the camera, that's kind of when we start to think about, well, is this the right use case?

You know, if

[00:52:32] Rob Bredow: Right.

[00:52:32] Shivani Jhaveri: If you need a CG character and you need something that's pretty close to camera, you don't have them on the day. we will always recommend like, It's a better done in post. You're going to be more successful getting whether it's a CG character or maybe there's a huge, hero explosion that has to happen in the background or a plane needs to crash or something like that, things like that, that we all know VFX is just, bread and butter, we've done it a million times, we know it's good at that. Stuff like that is not great to get in camera finals. When it is great, though, is a lot of times when you know you're gonna get your hero shot through the VFX shot. But maybe you need to do all of the surrounding shots and you just need the interactive light from that.

So we can still throw a plane on the wall and we could crash it and get all that great fiery explosion reflections and all that good stuff on the actors. So for that, it might be a great use case. But for the hero shot of that plane actually crashing and there's really traditional CGVFX shots. It's not the greatest for that kind of stuff.

The other thing that we always caution against is really hard sunlight. Um, if it's a very, very hard sun and you know, like I said, we've made improvements in that way too, but those are never the scenes that we're going to recommend for in the volume because you're never going to be able to fully replicate the sun, you know, it's never going to be one to one that lighting that you want, that hard sun. Um, and we've absolutely done some of that stuff in the volume. But I think when you look at that type of lighting versus, you know, a flatter lighting or a more, you know, dusk sunset night or interiors, you're always going to find more success in those types of use cases. So those are kind of like the two main things.

And, um, I don't know, Justin, if you have any other flags to add that we look out for and say, maybe this is not the best use case. And I think the wonderful part about having the background that we do at ILM where, you know, we're traditionally a VFX company is. You're always able to weigh both. So as a producer, oftentimes what I'm doing is when I'm getting a script, I'm actually always doing a cost analysis compare. A lot of times what we hear from people is, well, we don't have any budget for virtual production. So we can't do it. My goal is to be able to kind of sell them on the fact that, Hey, look, like our goal is to be able to take budget out of other places to make this worth your time. Um, whether that's less VFX shots because you're going to get more in camera finals or less of a set build because we can build some of this virtually and, you know, get more out of it. our goal is kind of to fit into the overall production budget by finding those savings in other, other areas and make it. Make it useful.

[00:55:14] Justin Talley: Also, Stagecraft, I feel like, is, a lot of times, people, they jump to, led volume but it is a whole it's the whole virtual production palette of tools. So some people might come in with, uh, look at this as an LED volume show, but in looking at it, it makes more sense as a simulcam piece.

It makes more sense, um, for us to do, uh, simply a, like a, not a full LED volume, but push content to light fixtures to get that interactive lighting as Shivani was saying, maybe we're not shooting for in camera final. This is a set you're only going to do for, for half. of one day, uh, or whatever it is that the build out doesn't make sense. So, looking at the problem and all of the tools that are in our arsenal and bringing the correct tool to bear for, for what that issue is, a full 360 led volume may not make the most sense for what you're doing.

[00:56:07] Rob Bredow: great. Um, and you know, this isn't, this isn't just an ad for stagecraft, but literally, uh, Shivani and Justin spend time working with filmmakers all the time, breaking down, looking at. Where this is the right tool for the job, where it's going to save the production money, uh, which is generally, or where you're going to be able to accelerate the quality in a way that's really important for a production, that combination of things, literally, you can go to ilm.com/stagecraft, see all the offerings, everything that Justin and Shivani are talking about. And there's a contact us button. Uh, Shivani gets a good percentage of those, uh, contacts. Those are going to be going to her and the team. Um, as we. look to partner to see where it is the right tool for the job.

And you might be surprised that more than half the time we're recommending. Different solutions, right? That we can bring to bear than just the led stage, but the led stage, being able to pop one of those up anywhere in the world at the size you need just to solve the problems you need can be a very useful tool. And I'm thrilled that you walked us through some of this.

[00:57:04] The Martini

[00:57:04] Rob Bredow: We could keep going, but we gotta get to our martinis and, and wrap this show up. So Todd, do you have a martini today?

[00:57:10] Todd Vaziri: Sure do. Uh, my martini is for any movie lover out there who has a movie library that they have in their house that they want to be able to access in a more convenient way. mine is Plex. I am not a very technical person, but even I could handle setting up Plex and what does Plex give you?

Well, if you've got a lot of DVDs and blue rays, like I do, and you, uh, rip them for your own personal use, if you throw all of those movie files into a computer on a PC or Mac on a computer, that's always on. In your house, you can turn on, uh, what's called the Plex server, which uh, automatically you basically are creating a streaming library for yourself. And then on your Apple TV, on your iPhone, your, uh, on the web in your house, you can create your own streaming channel. Basically, it's all of your movies at your fingertips. Um, I, I adore this, uh, especially for what I consider library titles, like the movies that I know I'm going to revisit over and over and over again. Um, it, it, it's so much fun. I, I heard a lot of my friends were into Plex and I'm like, ah, that sounds really complicated. And I don't think I want to do that. It wasn't complicated. And it's one of those things that after I did it, I'm like, I wish I had done this years ago. So it's just so much fun to sit down on any TV in my house and just Uh, flick on my own streaming channel, which has all of my library titles.

So Plex, it's really

[00:58:43] Rob Bredow: Nice. And it's beautiful too. Like beautiful thumbnails, cover art. Like they do just such a nice job with Plex. Thanks. And it does, yeah, it feels like a professional streaming service. Nice, Todd. Shivani.

[00:58:54] Shivani Jhaveri: um, so, mine is a book, but also kind of a philosophy. It's called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.It sounds very dense, but I promise it's not. Um, it's, It's really this philosophy of stoicism, which is, I think, you know, we're, we're in February. It's already been a little bit of a year.

I think for a lot of us, for all of us in LA, you know, we had the fires

[00:59:17] Rob Bredow: Yes.

[00:59:18] Shivani Jhaveri: been, um, it's been quite, quite crazy. So, uh, I picked up this book actually at the beginning of the year and it's a, the whole philosophy of stoicism is kind of about the idea that You can only control your actions and you can't control all of the other things that are going on around you.

So focus on what you can control and kind of lead with logic, rather than too much emotion. And I think a lot of us in leadership, you know, we always try to do our best at that without leading with, you know, an excess of emotion. But, I love, I love the book and I, you know, would recommend it to anyone that's kind of, Looking for something that's a bit grounding in a way.

And, um, there's a synopsis version of it called the daily stoic. And it's just little passages of that philosophy. There's one every morning. So I've been reading it every morning this year. And I think it gives me kind of a fresh outlook on my day. Not to get, you know, too overly invested in smaller issues and just focus on what you can impact what you can in the time we have.

And, um, yeah, I, I'm really enjoying it.

[01:00:24] Rob Bredow: nice. Yeah, that seems perfect for a stagecraft producer as well. Like, uh, in the chaos of the day. I love it.

[01:00:30] Shivani Jhaveri: yes. Yeah.

[01:00:31] Rob Bredow: Jenny.

[01:00:33] Jenny Ely: Yeah, so mine's actually two books, uh, about as far away from meditations as you can get because mine is completely a fantasy world rather than anything that has to do with reality. Um, but mine are, uh, two books that are in the same universe. It's A Day of Fallen Night and The Priory of the Orange Tree.

They're both by Samantha Shannon. Um, they're part of what she calls the Roots of Chaos series. Um, so Samantha Shannon's a British author who specialized at university in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, which is so specific. I just love that. And, um, she published her first best selling book when she was 21 years old, which for fantasy, that's just incredible.

So, um, Priory of the Orange Tree was the first one. It came out in 2019. And then A Day of Fallen Night is a prequel that came out in 2023 so I've read both of these books a few times, and I just recently listened to the audiobook of both of them. They're high fantasy. Uh, they're quite lengthy. Both are around about eight hundred and fifty pages.

They're told through four points of view of characters in different parts of this world, and they all have a different belief system. So one group is very staunchly religious, one group worships dragons, one is a group of mages, and they're all fighting the same villain from different points of view, which is this ancient dragon called the Nameless One.

So if you like, if you like dragon fantasy, this is right up your alley. Um, but both books have really, really strong characters, both female and male. And particularly in Day of Fallen Night, which is the prequel, we get a deep dive into this world of these incredibly fierce, uh, female warriors, and, that are referenced in the first book.

But in the prequel, we go much deeper into how their society is structured and how, The Warriors are developed and for being such long books, nothing drags. I mean, there's just enough backstory and history to give you the info you need, but there's also so much action. So, um, I can't wait for the next book in the series.

I don't know when it's going to be out, probably a few years, but if you love big, beefy fantasy books that you can just lose yourself in, I recommend Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fall and Night.

[01:02:31] Rob Bredow: Thanks, Jenny. Justin.

[01:02:33] Justin Talley: mine is very film oriented, um, it's an app that you can get, for your phone. Um, it's called Artemis, , and, it is a, , sort of a camera director's viewfinder tool, um, and it's something that is enormously helpful. You can select, uh, the format of the camera by manufacturer, by aspect ratio, and it has modeling in it for basically every lens that is out there. Um, both sort of a prosumer and, and professional. and it is just Massively helpful when you're scouting a location to figure out where, where is the camera going to go? Where can it go? you can take photos from it and you can also stream from it to another device. so somebody can be walking around, um, With an iPad and you can be streaming what you're looking at to them. we've used it, as sort of a quick and dirty VCAM solution. uh, DPs use it all the time. So it's not something I have to convince them to use or anything like that. Um, and it's, it's. Field of view for all these cameras is super accurate. Um, so it's just a really great tool. You can take stills out of it, um, and use those to communicate, Hey, this is what we're looking at.

This is the shot. Um, especially if you're on a project where you've been given storyboards or previs and now are on the real set. You can go and try to replicate that and figure out, is that really what the shot's going to be? And where is the camera in the physical world? If what the shot is supposed to be.

Um, so yeah, it's great. Great tool updated all the time as new lenses come out, new cameras come out.

[01:04:12] Rob Bredow: yeah, Artemis is a great app. My Martini today is an app as well, uh, Letterboxd. We're both, uh, Todd and I are bookending our martinis with, uh, library related, uh, applications. So Letterboxd is an app for your iPhone or anything like that. Uh, lets you log and review your movies, uh, that you've seen. And if you're like me, like I see a lot of movies, but I'm trying to remember, someone will say like, what's the great movie you saw this year?

And I just, I always draw a blank. And now I can pop up my Letterboxd log and I can see some of the things that I love that I've gotten to watch recently. Um, it's a nice way to just kind of log what you're and other people, you can connect with other people and see their reviews, see what they're logging on there. But it's just a really nice app and it's made by film fans. There's just a lot of love for film in that Letterboxd community. I think they have some tie-ins with the Academy too. So you get a lot of year end focus when the Oscars are coming around. So overall I recommend Letterboxd, it's a lot of fun. You spell it the way it sounds, except there's no E at the end. So letter B O X D, um, if you're looking for it on the web.

[01:05:22] Outro

[01:05:22] Rob Bredow: Thank you so much for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast, and thank you so much Shivani and Justin for joining us today. It was so nice to have you on the show to walk us through stagecraft and some of your roles. the next episode we have a very special guest. Mr. John Knoll himself is joining us, uh, to talk about the amazing work on Skeleton Crew with Todd, um, who also worked on the show. So, that series is out, so it'll be really fun to dive in, in detail, to some of the fun that happened on that, series.

If you have a question for the show or you would like to suggest a topic that we can discuss, email us lighterdarker@ilm.Com. You can also contact us or follow us on social media. Our links are going to be in the show notes, which you can find on ILM.com /LighterDarker or anywhere you're listening to this podcast. The transcripts are also posted on our website there. If you like the show, like and subscribe on YouTube. Uh, leave us a review or a comment, uh, let your friends know about the show we'd love for people to find it. And we want to thank Industrial Light and Magic for hosting the Lighter Darker podcast. This show is produced by Jenny Ely and myself, Rob Bredow. Today's episode has been edited by David Dovell and we want to thank ILM's PR team led by Greg Grusby, who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help make all of this happen. Thank you for listening to the show. And until next time, your pixels be both lighter and darker.