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[00:00:00] they were inventive, artistic, creative people who said,let's do something really different with this movie business. ​

Rob Bredow: Welcome to the Lighter Darker podcast where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling. Thank you so much for joining us. This is our eighth episode and our final episode of 2024 we're gonna pick back up in January of next year and joining us today My co host Todd Vaziri

Todd Vaziri: I'm Todd Vaziri, Compositing Supervisor and Artist at ILM.

Rob Bredow: and our producer Jenny Ely

Hello, I'm Jenny Ely, a production manager at

Jenny Ely: ILM.

Rob Bredow: And I'm Rob Bredo. I'm the Chief Creative Officer of Industrial Light and Magic and SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. And today I am thrilled that we have a guest co host with us. Today's guest host is Dean Cundey who is an award winning cinematographer with a career spanning [00:01:00] decades.

Rob Bredow: You've seen his work dating back to the movie Halloween in 1978, The Thing, all three Back to the Future movies.Who Framed Roger Rabbit where he got an Oscar nomination and I think a BAFTA win from that film. Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, Apollo 13, many others. a long time collaborator with ILM. He recently won an Emmy in 2023 for The Mandalorian. Um, so many more award nominations and wins. Welcome to the show, Dean.

Dean Cundey: Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here and to be able to talk with you and pass on things that happened,

Rob Bredow: We love it. And we're such fans of your work, Todd and I, this is the first time I think we've been really nervous, Todd, have such a luminary on the show.

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Dean Cundey: I'm, I'm okay. So don't you worry about me?

Todd Vaziri: Okay, good. It bounces all out. Good.

Rob Bredow: That's great. So we'll get started as we usually do. We'll jump into the mailbag, take a couple of questions from our listeners. [00:02:00] Jenny, do you want to ask that first question from William Bevan?

Jenny Ely: Yeah, okay, so William wants to know what are the longest shots you've worked on that you could never get right and always had something that needed

Jenny Ely: tweaking?

Rob Bredow: I love this. I love this thinking about it from a visual effects perspective, but also maybe Dean on set where you walk in with one plan of a setup and then you're just having to make some changes on the day, whether it's for an actor or whether from some technical reason, I'm sure you've had some of those experiences as well.

Dean Cundey: Oh yeah. I think that's it. Part of the challenge of what we do, but also the fun of what we do is solving problems. We are all magicians the way I look at it in that we are producing a magic trick to get the audience to believe something and it isn't real.

Dean Cundey: I hate to ruin that for a lot of people, but, and, um, so it's nice to be able to experience and experiment and apply the knowledge that we. Gained or taught ourselves by, [00:03:00] by mistake a lot of times. and to be able to do that and create the illusion for the audience, the fact that they are willing to disconnect and,then, believe that what they're seeing is true or at least accepts the superheroes and all of that in our lives.

Rob Bredow: I'm always amazed. And I think people who haven't been on set wouldn't expect the amount of illusion, the amount of trickery that's done, whether it's for the camera, the lights or every other aspect of the technical side of the production, but just making that hero look heroic and the way that actor is lit so differently than the environment, maybe next differently than the actor standing right next to them, a lot of care and careful planning goes into that.

Rob Bredow: Yeah.

Dean Cundey: Yeah. It's,you look at our industry, it came from silent movies. No sound. The first ones, the Lumiere brothers, invented a camera that captured [00:04:00] such fascinating things as women leaving a factory and a train going by, and those things were. Everyday occurrences, you could go somewhere and see it.

Dean Cundey: So fortunately, they were inventive, artistic, creative people who said,let's do something really different with this movie business. And, here we are, decades later.you know, a hundred years later, I'm trying to, uh, further that illusion, that creativity,and ILM is certainly a leader in creating, the ability for an audience to watch something and then think that it's real, or at least they want to believe that it's real.

Todd Vaziri: That's a nice, I love that bit of perspective because it's so easy for folks to forget that the earliest filmmakers, the earliest motion picture filmmakers were dabbling with special effects, magical effects from the [00:05:00] get go. learning that the cut is such a powerful thing. You can make someone disappear with, what we would call an in camera cut.

Todd Vaziri: Now, they were experimenting with the limits of the magical aspects of film from day one.

Todd Vaziri: It didn't start with Kubrick. It didn't start with Star Wars. It started way before

Dean Cundey: Well, the film business, the film art,has always encouraged us to go further. It's a tool that we could create this illusion, this, capture imagination and all that stuff for an audience.and it was seen very early on. Uh, but Méliès, the French filmmaker.

Dean Cundey: Who saw that, there was stuff you could do to create a different world and they sent people to the moon and did all kinds of things like that. so early on the capability of what we do with film and the magic that can be done by, you know, writers, but artists and, um, places like ILM that have [00:06:00] furthered the illusion capturing, so much further than it could ever have possibly been dreamed by Méliès or anybody in the thirties or forties.

Rob Bredow: I think when William's asking this question, one of the things he's thinking about probably is like Todd or another visual effects artist sitting behind a computer, working on trying to make one of those single illusions and how long one of those shots, five seconds of the film might be taking Todd.

Rob Bredow: I mean,I guess since we're not usually working on one shot at a time, it's probably hard to break it down into how long you've worked on your longer shots.

Todd Vaziri: We get this question all the time in visual effects and nobody's working on just one shot at any one time, anywhere between three and 10 shots could be in various levels of production for a single artist at a time. Usually the bigger shots take a longer time. And, a few come to mind, but I'm just going to say, for me, I probably spent over six months working on a single shot from Mission Impossible 3. the [00:07:00] bridge attack where the explosion happens behind Tom Cruise. And he gets blown forward and the UAV flies by. It was an extremely elaborate split screen,shot that I had to do once for the two Trailer and then a slightly different version of it for the final film I was playing with that shot and the team for a long

Todd Vaziri: time It was probably six months and there's gonna be a few in my career that I it's Yeah, six months seven months something along those lines usually it's a very difficult shot, but from an art direction standpoint I mean It, it's tricky to draw the eye, like

Todd Vaziri: where do we want our eye to go? And there's usually so much happening in the shots that we work on that to give the audience the proper thing to look at or react to, that's what takes a long time and there's no button, there's no rendering solution to, to draw the eye in just the right way. And that's what [00:08:00] usually lends these shots to take so long to create.

Rob Bredow: when I was making shots, hands on the box, back quite a few years ago on Independence Day, that alien mothership exploded and me and several other people were on that shot. And I was doing all the explosion elements in some custom software that we'd written that was rendering in GL and on the screen.

Rob Bredow: And, We worked on that movie. We got invited to help out on Independence Day four months before the movie was scheduled to be in the theater. So we had a total of four months to be on the show, and I started that shot on the first day, I remember, um, Joe, the, maybe an associate or digital effects supervisor on the show, he came in, and he had just come out of Dailies where they had looked at another version of the explosion shot, and he said, So Rob, I got to tell you, because I was probably. 22 at that time. He's like, there's some shots in some movies that are so important for the movie that they're going to get finished on the last day. So you know, we got six more weeks, so we're going to do six more weeks of versions, and then they're going to pick one because you've done a lot of different nice versions of this explosion.

Rob Bredow: They're going to keep changing it until. Until [00:09:00] we, at the end, they're going to pick one of the best ones and that's, what's going to be in the movie. So don't expect to finish this one early. Cause it's just going to be one of those shots that needs the time to breathe. And you know, at that point I was working pretty long hours.

Rob Bredow: So I'm like, okay, I got to gird myself for another six weeks of this explosion shot, along with the other things I was doing on the show, but that shot was probably four months for me from beginning to end.

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, we, I always say you never know what the last shot or the hardest shot is going to be. But you have a pretty good idea of which shots are going to be a big pain to set up and do. And that was clearly one of those. Dean, is there a particular setup that you think of, that, what, it took a long time for prep of a particular single shot, from your career that comes to mind with this question?

Dean Cundey: I've done is working on, um, on shots that are, Uniquely creative, uniquely story told, you might say, [00:10:00] unique, technologies, you know, Jurassic Park, uh, was as far as I'm concerned, the first time photo realistic creatures had been made believably, I don't know, it's difficult for me to pick out one because, um, you're always,striving to do something new, better, storytelling, and you have to be careful not to draw attention away with your really, really fabulous shot well, you know, where someone says, that's, why don't we add one more building blowing up back there and there are things that are done that, you know, did you really have to do that or did it just seem like a.

Dean Cundey: It would be fun to do at the time. So I,I've always been, um, a big fan of understanding, the storytelling and understanding, what we as humans deal with, like.your eye tends to go to the brightest spot in the frame.I don't know why,

Dean Cundey: But, um, your [00:11:00] eye goes to the brightest spot. So you have to consider that in your composition and your so forth movement. Attracts our attention. So how do you use the movement to, not distract, but to draw attention? all of this visual storytelling that is actually learned over the a hundred years that the industry has had films and cameras.

Dean Cundey: how do you tell the story using what we've learned over this hundred years as far as the audience's point of view and,what are the psychological and mechanics? And then how do you use those things to tell a story, not show those things to an audience?

Dean Cundey: So much. and say, look what I did down in my mother's basement. it's the kind of thing where you want to do something amazing and then have nobody notice it.

Rob Bredow: think of [00:12:00] one of your setups on Jurassic that does that. And I would love to, I could ask Jurassic Park questions, this entire podcast, by the way, but, the first reveal, you get the shots of their faces and then you cut back and the Brontosaurus is close and you get, takes that bite out of the tree and the tree moves around, which just seemed impossible.

Rob Bredow: Cool. To everyone at the time that was going to be, it was going to look as believable as it was when you're framing that up. Of course, there's no dinosaurs there, maybe some sticks and tennis balls. And you're imagining what that's going to be and how much to move the camera or not move the camera.

Rob Bredow: I'm really curious as you were composing that shot in your mind without the hero in the plate, this is before that was done on a daily basis. So I'm really interested to hear some of the thinking.

Dean Cundey: It's interesting because first of all, what we do is create this illusion. Some of it is physical and we recorded it on a camera, but, now more and more of it is, [00:13:00] just,you might say, imagination it's, somebody has an idea and then somebody improves it and somebody else makes it possible and all of that.

Dean Cundey: So it's, it is. To me, it's a, um, fascinating business that we're in, fascinating art that we're in the fact that we've, over a period of so many years created our own world, I mean,when you think about it, there was a no motion picture before, say 1900,and it's, fascinating that over a period of these years, we have.

Dean Cundey: Taught ourselves and created our world and have produced things that people can, after the fact, look at and say, oh, that's a great idea. I think I'm going to steal that. And, um, that's how we embellish our art and move it along by,I've always said that,it's always best for us when we steal from the best.

Dean Cundey: I think that's something that we really [00:14:00] should appreciate, about what we do is that,we recognize the talents, the skills of, others, the inventiveness, the genius of, a lot of people and then we,uh, apply them. Ourselves to, the thing that we enjoy doing and we're doing it for, which is storytelling and creating, uh, creating the illusion.

Rob Bredow: absolutely. That's perfect. I think it's going to take us to our first feature. When we have new people on the podcast, one thing we love to talk about is the getting started stories and the setbacks, people, we call this, call this thing rejection letters and it's,it's not literally a letter, but it's.

Rob Bredow: This section where, when you get on a podcast, it's easy to talk about the best things. And we're going to do a lot of that. We're going to talk about some of the amazing shots that you've made that have inspired us and how those came to the big screen, but also there were mistakes and setbacks along the way, right?

Rob Bredow: And we're at times where one door closes and another one opens, and maybe it surprises you the outcome. And certainly for [00:15:00] people getting started in their career, these kinds of things, hearing from someone who's had so much success that it wasn't all smooth sailing, but can be, very inspiring.

Rob Bredow: So I wonder if you have any, uh, anything in mind that you might want to share with us that, uh, there's one of those kinds of stories.

Dean Cundey: My journey has been reflective of that concept of progress. I went to UCLA film school.I, um, graduated and decided that, I was going to be in the movie business and,I started working in any job I could get my very first job was doing makeup. because I had done some makeup as a kid in high school on a couple of plays and stuff. So I was familiar with the materials and things and I somehow got just serendipitously offered this job to do makeup on a cheap, low budget Roger Corman movie. Then, one of my friends in, uh, film school had convinced Roger into, um, producing and [00:16:00] directing this adventure.

Dean Cundey: And since I was one of his, you know, film student friends, he asked if I would want to do the makeup on this movie. And I said, well, naturally, even though of course I had studied cinematography. All through UCLA, but, it opened a door because I got a phone call after the wrap from Roger Corman, who wanted me to do the makeup on his movie.

Dean Cundey: He was directing and, I thought, Oh, that's interesting. I thought this was going to be hard. And of course, after that wrapped, there was nothing. So I now began beating the bushes. My career has been filled with all kinds of, serendipitous moments, but, um, also sad,sad rejections.

Dean Cundey: You don't get the thing you apply for.you, um,hope that,the next thing is going to lead to the next great thing and then it doesn't. And then you get some cheap little movie. [00:17:00] That you happen to find some really interest in an angle on it and can do more with it, case in point, of course, is Halloween, which was, unique for its time, nobody had done a thriller, horror, movie like that and, It was just a great adventure to work with John Carpenter, who was, you know, understood visual storytelling.

Dean Cundey: a lot of my 10 or so movies before that were using a camera to record some actor talking, and then you record something blowing up. And, um, Halloween was. Visual storytelling. I embraced it immediately and felt that I could contribute and I could embellish and all of that stuff.

Dean Cundey: and John trusted me. That was really sort of a great breakthrough to, um, do something that turned out to be successful the first week. Nobody [00:18:00] went to see the movie. It was so unusual.

Rob Bredow: And, it was built from there.

Dean Cundey: And of course everybody said,we tried, okay. The second week, more people came.

Dean Cundey: And the third week more, and pretty soon it was a phenomenon. so it was really nice to be connected to that and then, have doors open, because of doing that. And, um, and I think that's probably true for so many of us in this business is we look for something that will open the door.

Dean Cundey: and prove that we can do more than is expected or possible, you know, you contribute ideas and they don't have enough money and you find a way to do it.

Jenny Ely: I love your point about it being a progression. I think a lot of people are looking for their big break, or they're looking for the exact right job, but they don't really realize that the other things they're doing, like you, you said you were doing makeup, but you wanted to be a cinematographer, I'm sure that Having that experience enriched your [00:19:00] career and your toolkit even more.

Jenny Ely: So I think it's really important to think early in your career about everything I'm doing now is going to make me better in the future. And then, you know, it's not like you have that aha moment, although some people do sometimes, but sometimes you just keep going and going, and then you wake up one day and you're kind of where you want it to be.

Dean Cundey: I've always felt that.We, we can teach ourselves so much. We can learn from each other. if we all work together toward the, the, the goal of, you know, succeeding in this storytelling business, if we all, uh, work together, we can teach each other.

Dean Cundey: Oddly enough, there's nothing I took in college as a class that I haven't somehow used. It's an amazing industry for that, you can take all kinds of art history and things and then you become an insurance salesman. And art history is,you know, just like an interest or a hobby and it's not part of what you do.

Dean Cundey: I have [00:20:00] found that there's nothing I took as far as history and science and physics and all of this weird stuff. You'd think, what am I going to need this for? In our business, we blend so much of that physics about how to hang a load. That's going to swing a certain thing and art history, because we're trying to replicate the feeling of, some Italian, whatever.

Dean Cundey: And, so I, it's, an amazing aspect from that, that I've, I'd turn around and look and say, Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that in class and here it is. And, so I. I always encourage students to, if they're serious about getting into this business, to just pay attention all through school to all kinds of stuff that seems like it's boring.

Dean Cundey: Oh, why do I have to learn that biology? no, it's surprisingly important. I, I've had, [00:21:00] colleagues who, like Alan Davio, who won, I don't know, four Academy awards or more, I said to Alan, boy, that's really got to be a great thing, your first Academy award and all that.

Dean Cundey: And he said, yeah then everybody thinks you're too expensive or you're too good for it. And he said he missed out on chances to do that. So I,I'm kind of glad that I was able to use movies as my reason for someone to hire me. They enjoyed the storytelling. The movie was a success.

Dean Cundey: and that became, the, the thing that I could then look back and, uh, my, my ex father in law, when I was a little late for our family dinner one night, he said, when is he going to get a real job,

Rob Bredow: Ha ha

Rob Bredow: ha.

Dean Cundey: The thing that we hear quite a bit, people can't understand why we would be so dedicated to [00:22:00] not working, not being rejected.

Dean Cundey: Why not, why don't you just get a good job where you can fill out the insurance forms and not have to work at night and then, all weekend and all of the stuff that we do, that we put up with,

Todd Vaziri: The feast and the famine. Yeah,

Dean Cundey: Yeah,you know, we put up with all of this stuff, why would we do that, you know, and it's hard to, hard to explain to a lot of people that,there's a certain creative something that's affecting us up here in our heads and, we have to do it,

Todd Vaziri: The one thing that comes up a lot when we talk about these rejection letter segments is, You have to be ready, but you have to be at the right place at the right time.

Todd Vaziri: And what I want anybody who's listening, who has any kind of hiring power, directors, producers, and stuff, listen to the people whose careers have been Took off from the, for lack of a better term, the Roger Corman school,

Todd Vaziri: that Roger Corman had a [00:23:00] big tent and helped launch a lot of careers.

Todd Vaziri: And this was news to me that one of my favorite cinematographers at one of his breaks was in the Roger Corman school. And that makes my heart sing. So listen to anybody. And there is a surprising number of amazing artists that have come. Through Roger Corman and be like Roger Corman, be that

Todd Vaziri: person.

Dean Cundey: I can't remember who was the director who had come through the, the school and, he was, oh, we were working on, On Casper, but anyway, somebody said to him, on the set, you know what, it's, I think it's sad the way Roger Corman exploited you and, all of these,guys, um, who, um, went on to direct big movies and have huge careers.

Dean Cundey: Roger exploited you. And he said, no, no, you don't understand. We exploited [00:24:00] Roger.

Rob Bredow: We made these cheap, low budget movies that he paid for. We didn't do it saying, well, he's only paying me this much money. I'll only do this much work. you know, you get the offer made and then you put that behind you and say, Oh, joke, now we're going to make the movie

Rob Bredow: Yes.

Dean Cundey: and you find ways to embellish too.

Dean Cundey: so that people say, oh, well, dedication, you know, and, you take any job you can get, um, I often tell film students, take any job you can get, don't ask, how much are you going to pay me because that means you're only in it for the money, not for the art of their cheap, low budget movie, but, and that you're selflessly in it for yourself.

Dean Cundey: And, so I think there, there's some, uh, weird opportunities now that the way the business swings, when I started, it was [00:25:00] a fortuitous period I think, as I look back, there were drive in theaters. I don't know how many there are left, but, uh, I know that there's four or five of them in Los Angeles that disappeared.

Dean Cundey: they needed product

Rob Bredow: and they were,less concerned than the big distributors, about what the stories were and all, as long as it had action.so that people at the drive-in theater could stay engaged. there were regular movies as a kid. I used to go all the time with my parents and sit in the back seat in my pajamas.

Dean Cundey: And, um,there were a lot of, a lot of. Opportunities for low budget movies to be distributed. Now, drive-ins have disappeared and the culture has changed. I guess you could say the streaming is the new drive in theater,

Dean Cundey: but, but in those days they needed stuff and I was not.[00:26:00]

Dean Cundey: to join the Hollywood union so that I could work in studios and on regular movies, I actually got a phone call after I had been to the camera union several times asking about entry programs and. And internships and all of that stuff. And they laughed at me. And finally, I got a phone call from the head of the camera local who said, um, hi, say, listen, you've been in a few times and I'm thinking, Oh great.

Dean Cundey: He's gonna offer me a, you've been in a few times and I just want you to know, you will never join this union.

Rob Bredow: Wow.

Dean Cundey: And I said, well, really? And I click. He hung up. I was fortunate to have this market of low budget, cheap movies that, first of all, it would keep me a little busy. Secondly, it gave me a chance to experiment and [00:27:00] make mistakes, you know, and I always encourage people to be in a position to make a mistake.

Dean Cundey: You learn so much from your mistakes and,you're, if you don't, you're not paying attention to what you did wrong. So, I think it's important to understand coming up through the system, with my opportunities of these low budget movies and to make mistakes, you know,and then finally hit one where you could show.

Dean Cundey: Yourself as being a, real filmmaker,

Dean Cundey: And it takes,doing a lot of jobs, paying attention to a lot of different jobs, take any job you can get.I remember when I was, I think it was my last semester at UCLA film school.and, I had a. A, a unique one semester course from James Wong Howe, who came to UCLA.

Dean Cundey: He had won two Academy [00:28:00] Awards, one of the most famous, cinematographers. And everyone wondered what he doing here with all of these film students. He wanted to pass it on. He did a brilliant job. and it. It taught me so much because he was very practical.we would be the crew. He would say, okay, put the 2k over here.

Dean Cundey: And as we would take it along, he would say, no. Start to unwrap the cable first and make sure you've got all the diffusion. And there was all of this practical stuff that wasn't just about the theory of light and shadow, but how do you actually work on a set and keep a job? I remember at about that same time, there was a, a.

Dean Cundey: Fellow student who had visions about himself. Because he always wore a sports coat and he dressed up while everyone else was a hippie with bell bottoms and all kinds of weird [00:29:00] clothing. and one day we're sitting there chatting, he said, I'm graduating with you also in.

Dean Cundey: I'm really looking forward to it because I'm going to take any job I can get. I'll produce, I'll direct, um, I'll write. Then I said, wait, what about all the rest? What about, working at craft service and loading lights into a truck? He said, I'm not going to do any of that.

Dean Cundey: I, but I'm willing to write and produce and direct.

Dean Cundey: And, I have never heard of him.

Rob Bredow: How about the guy at the union who gave you the call? Have you met him since you've been in the union? And since you got your Oscar nominated, do you know who that person is? Oh,

Dean Cundey: he actually passed on not too long after that. I'm not laughing gleefully. I'm very serious about his passing.

Rob Bredow: it's. The best rejection letter story I think we've ever heard at the guild [00:30:00] that you're going to be a part of, and you're going to make career in, um, to hear from the beginning when you're just trying to get your foot in the door, that sort of slamming the door in your face and you deciding, you know, Hey, okay, that's fine.

Rob Bredow: I'll do some makeup. I'll get my foot in the door, through an introduction through a peer. I mean, it,it, it couldn't be, uh, more on point for the kind of thing that I think is the way a lot of us have found ourselves in the industry, which is. We love the art of visual storytelling. So we're just trying to get in in any way we can. I love that story.

Dean Cundey: I tell that to all the film students because I look out at, at a group of them, on the bleachers or whatever. And while I'm doing these lighting demos and things teaching, um, a five day class on how to tell a story. And one of them, a script is chosen that one of the students has written and we then attempt to do it.

Dean Cundey: And I lead them through the process. and I'm always intrigued by the [00:31:00] fact that,as I look out at 40 faces.the truth is, 10 or 20 of them are going to hear their father saying, when is he going to get a real job?and there's a lot of people who won't persevere, you know, they will,they will.

Dean Cundey: Just, say, oh, this is too hard. I think our system, as cruel as that can be, really filters out the people who aren't as dedicated, they're thinking it would be cool to work in the movies. they're not dedicated to storytelling and learning and all of the stuff you have to give up.

Dean Cundey: Yeah. Well, that's a perfect transition to talking about our main topic, which is really making magic on screen. And I, I've heard you talk about, even as you were growing up, your interest being a magician, your interest in magicians pulling off those magic tricks. And I thought it might be fun to talk together about what [00:32:00] makes an illusion work, which so many of your films do so well, whether that's Jurassic Park or Casper or any of these films. That are on your resume. and whether it's a trick with cards or illusion on screen, what, what are some of the things that are kind of go tos that help, that help trick the audience? They help trick the eye.

Dean Cundey: I was given this magic cassette when I was like 10 years old, and I loved the idea that I could put the ball inside this cup and put the top on it and then it would disappear and, My fellow kid friends and my, my, my mother always was very good about making me perform in front of relatives and friends who are over for playing poker or something like that.

Dean Cundey: So

Dean Cundey: I, I got this exposure to performing and I realized that. I had friends who did it also, and they would take the top off the cup and say, look, the [00:33:00] ball has disappeared. Want to know how I did that? Look, see, they're like, and they're trying to make themselves feel like they're smarter than everybody.

Dean Cundey: No, you're smarter than them. If they are fooled and say, how did you do that? And, and, so over a period of time, I got, I'd love the idea of. Of, making people believe the impossible andthat's what magic was. And I gradually got bigger and bigger tricks and did kids birthday parties and things like that.

Dean Cundey: It was always about keeping the secret and. Making people believe somehow, how do you do it? And it wasn't just doing it because that drew attention to the mechanics.

Rob Bredow:

Dean Cundey: you.

Rob Bredow: you,

Dean Cundey: Embellish this illusion by making people realize that it's unusual because that ball can't normally disappear, can [00:34:00] it?

Dean Cundey: I learned

Rob Bredow: then

Dean Cundey:

Dean Cundey: performing magic and fooling people, was something that, Most of the time they enjoyed. so over a period of time I graduated into the biggest magic trick of all.

Dean Cundey: Telling the story,and you think about it, Well, we used to go into this big room with a bunch of seats and a white wall, nothing on it. And the lights would go down and they would project these images on the wall. And pretty soon it sucked us in. If it was well done, you believed you were watching people and things, and then you're watching the impossible.

Dean Cundey: And how did they do that? Well, nevermind, because here comes the story. And me, it's always been one of those things that you try to always,make the illusions even more impossible, which is one of the things that you guys do so well at ILM. Find [00:35:00] ways, don't rest on your laurels because we don't use film anymore.

Dean Cundey: optical printers. You've seen those right in your museum. I took some pictures of it, but I showed it to some of my film students and they said,what the heck is, how, I said, well, see, here's the camera And what you do now is then you combine different pieces, film, pieces of film.

Dean Cundey: What's that? Now everybody's used to working on their laptops at home. Doing, even just simple stuff with photo manipulation and all of that, but, the dedicated ones, you know, the software is accessible to them. it's not like they can't get to a big, three headed, optical printer, they can sit, like I say, in their mother's basement, teach themselves, essentially the same [00:36:00] techniques that are done for motion pictures, you know, and you guys spend a lot more time on it

Dean Cundey: But,the fact that anybody can teach themselves that and has, is making this magic available. I mean, you know, you can work on little independent commercials in pumpkin corners, Iowa, and you have the same access.

Dean Cundey: If you are dedicated and skilled and talented, you can make that commercial. Bigger and better than anybody thought, I'm, um, really very, amazed by how this business has become accessible to more creative people. And you look, there are more film schools than ever, and they're more creative, visual effects companies, and the work can be done all over the world.

Dean Cundey: you don't have to have a big optical printer in China or Mexico or anywhere now that you can just,do the work.[00:37:00]

Todd Vaziri: One of the, one of the magic tricks in cinema that I will never, ever forget. And it was true, how did they do that moment? And I cannot go this just through this discussion without talking about Back to the Future Part II motion control, split screenshots. I am obsessed with those shots. And one of the things, to see Michael J.

Todd Vaziri: Fox act against Michael J. Fox or young Biff act against old Biff,the most amazing magic trick I had ever seen up to that point and the degree of difficulty that you and Zemeckis and the ILM team had to deal with in developing the computer controlled motion control system to film multiple passes,the exact same way multiple times.

Todd Vaziri: And then later ILM composite them together. That's one thing. But the fact That the shots where young Biff and old Biff [00:38:00] are talking to each other. They don't, they're not like lockoffs. They weren't, split screens were not, they were not innovative at that time, even in the late eighties, but the shots were done in such a way that they fit into any Robert Zemeckis movie and back to the future and back to feature two, they didn't feel out of place and I feel like.

Todd Vaziri: That added the degree of difficulty to have these super long shots that are dollying in changing focus, constantly readjusting foreground and background. The magic trick was yes. The technical aspects of the motion control system. Yes. The technical aspects of the compositing split screen, but the design of the shots felt completelynormal to be in a Zemeckis. Type movie. Can you talk a little bit about the pain of those motion control shots and how difficult it was to deal with it, with all the [00:39:00] makeup changes and the costume changes and the lighting changes between those passes to help fulfill that magic trick.

Dean Cundey: A lot of the fun of it is that creativity, and creating the creativity.Bob was really good at visualizing a shot and then saying, okay, now what do I want to do here? And it then became up to us to find ways to do it. and part of that was.

Dean Cundey: understanding the process, understanding, film and compositing and mats and optical printers and all of the stuff that went with it. And then how do we take the next step? How do we,draw the audience in and create the illusion by having the camera slowly move in on all of these same people, how do you,do the timing, that shot that you mentioned, back to the future too, [00:40:00] sitting at the dining table and things like, how do we connect Michael to Michael?

Dean Cundey: Well, let's have him hand himself a glass of water. And then how do we register that for every take? So I had him put a little foot, um, on the table. That Michael would slide the glass into and it would always sit in exactly the same spot.

Dean Cundey: And then he could, as his other self, pick it up out of that thing.

Dean Cundey: And it was devising

Dean Cundey: the illusion, the storytelling, that was the most fun. especially when they said, no, so now we've got this moving camera and look, it can pan and tilt and focus and,And how do we want to use it? And then you invent the story moments, you invent the techniques, you hope that the actors are on board.

Dean Cundey: [00:41:00] Michael was really very good at adapting, understanding how and what was needed to make those shots work. and, you know, I carried a lot of those techniques through to other things. I mean,one of the fun things was the, um, the twins movie.

Dean Cundey: The Parent Trap the original parent trap at Disney, there was Haley and herself on the screen at the same time, but it was done just as a split and a locked off camera.

Dean Cundey: um, you know, the compositing was really well done. Cause you don't notice any, jiggle and stuff. And, it was, One of those intriguing things, but it was the technology of the time, a locked off camera and an optical printer. So when we came to the parent trap, Nancy Meyer's version, I said, now that we have this thing called the motion [00:42:00] control head.

Dean Cundey: And I think we, we may have had a dolly at that time because we had just started developing, but motion control head, how would we stage this? So the camera would follow one and then come back to the other one and so forth. It now gives us that ability and,withrotoscoping and all that, that she could pass in front of herself.

Dean Cundey: So it was understanding. Techniques and technology, but saying, it's not going to limit us. We're going to go past that. How would we normally tell the story with a camera panning back and forth and interacting and so forth. and, it was a case of how to push the envelope each time.

Dean Cundey: And I think that'sone of those things that I've been very proud to have been part of. to be able to dabble in, you know, I mean, Jurassic, you know, the, the [00:43:00] innovative work that was done on that and the chance to just go along. Not only with it, but say, Oh, Oh, I have to put the camera right here.

Dean Cundey: To be able to say, why don't we also move the can pan over to reveal the thing because that's how we would do it in real life. and I think that's been one of my great satisfactions is,Working with teams of people who are willing to do that, willing to say, Oh, we've never done that before.

Dean Cundey: I'm, I remember it was Ken Ralston on, um, various things, Roger Rabbit, I guess. And Back to the Future

Dean Cundey: Bob would say,we want to do this. And I would say, you know, what would be great is if we could move the camera then, and we can do this and then he enters the frame. And Ken would say, well, we've never done that before.

Rob Bredow: Heh

Dean Cundey: see if we can. And he was so willing to look and [00:44:00] finally he'd say, let's shoot one safe version just in case it doesn't work. I don't think we ever used the safe version in, I don't know, four, four films I'd worked with Ken or,or whatever, you know, was always great to be able to, go a step further.

Dean Cundey: And have everybody around. I remember working on one film, and I said, okay, Oh, here's a chance. Why don't we do this or that and this and that? Oh, we can't do that. How about, can we do this or that? Nope. we can't do that. but what if we, also then we did this and changed the, nope, can't do that.

Dean Cundey: And they were afraid of failure.

Dean Cundey: and if there's a chance for failure, you find yourself an optional out, maybe not as good,

Dean Cundey: But at least you'll get that shot. But in the meantime, let's try for something [00:45:00] that is a new remarkably amazing magical term again. and I think that i've always Looked for that kind of, working together with people.

Dean Cundey: I mean, you know,I love to take credit for all of this stuff, but, I didn't know those dinosaurs were going to look that good.

Rob Bredow: I think nobody did until that movie. I mean, I guess people believed, but man, that was, that was, definitely down to the wire. it's it's fun to get to work with some of those same people here today who wrote the tools or were involved in some of those, that early risk taking that is really, like you say, established the precedent of

Rob Bredow: the way we see movies today.

Dean Cundey: something I always look forward to, with working with the crew and, and actors who are willing to say. Oh, I'm going to have to stand here for why? Because you're going to talk to yourself. I'm going to what?

Dean Cundey: And, rather than saying, oh, [00:46:00] no, no, no, no. Can't you just shoot me separately? And you know, the actors, Michael J Fox was fabulous.

Dean Cundey: And, um, Doc Brown was also really good at saying, okay, I'm part of the puzzle.

Dean Cundey: And these other people are all really invested in this. So let's all go on this journey together. So actors who are willing to do that crew people, you know, who you say, it would be great if we could put the camera here, but I don't know how we, ah, I've got it.

Dean Cundey: And the key grip would run off and devise some technique for suspending the camera, looking down on a wire or, who knows what.

Rob Bredow: One of my favorite things about working on a set is you're surrounded by a bunch of people who are excited about getting to the yes,

Rob Bredow: figuring out how to make that thing, that impossible thing happen. And it's one, it's one of the places where impossible things happen all the time. I remember

Rob Bredow: early in my career, I was on a set and someone's like, I need, we need, uh, [00:47:00] a weapon fashioned out of this.

Rob Bredow: It needs to light up from here to here. And it wasn't called for on the day. And the props department was like, okay, leave it with us. And 20 minutes later, they walk on set. With something that looks as though it would have taken two weeks to fabricate and they, you know, figured it out with a Coke bottle and a light and a flashlight and a couple other things.

Rob Bredow: They walk onto the set 20 minutes later. It's people who are inspired by figuring out how to

Dean Cundey: Yeah,

Dean Cundey: and I think being rewarded with seeing the movie and saying, wow, that's unique or different, or I, turning to the person next to you and saying, I did that.

Rob Bredow: Yes. That's super fun. Well ,before we're out of time here, uh, Jenny, maybe you could, uh, we got a ton of questions from other ILMers. We're not going to be able to get to all of them, but maybe this question from Kay's would be a nice one to end this part of the session on, and then we'll transition to our martini, but, uh, Kay's is a production manager in our Vancouver office.

Dean Cundey: Hmm. Vancouver. Nice town.

Jenny Ely: Kays will be happy to hear you say that. Okay. Could you describe how [00:48:00] your approach as a cinematographer changed as you went from working with tangible practical effects, like the thing to a mixture of both Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Back to the Future,or now to The Mandalorian

Dean Cundey: Good question. I think that we grow up in the film business, with all the limitations and especially when you're working the low budget ones, what in front of the camera is what you're going to get. and the, um, the stunts were okay. and, the illusions were, always kind of obvious to me.

Dean Cundey: so when someone would come and say, you know, we can do this, or we've invented this device, or,they, they've been doing, mad paintings and stuff since the very beginning of time, but to be confronted with an opportunity to do that, and rather than saying, Oh, well, I don't know how to.

Dean Cundey: You say, well, of course, I'm really good at that. And then, you run off and find a book and [00:49:00] read how did they did it? how did Ellen Shaw do it and stuff like that. So it's,

Dean Cundey: it's a case of never, never accepting no for an answer and never, saying, Oh, it can't be done.

Dean Cundey: The whole challenge is not just working day to day recording actors talking, but creating this illusion, getting the audience to believe the impossible or not understand that they've been fooled. because you just did something simple,increase that building over there or erase that stuff from the frame that was so distracting.

Dean Cundey: You know, some of it's simple and some of it is amazing. creating the first photo realistic, creatures in the computer, the dinosaurs. and then everybody learning from what you're doing about how to make it better, how to make the illusion more believable.and so I think that,you know, one of my,great [00:50:00] satisfactions is always been, Embracing the impossible, creating the illusion, the magic.

Rob Bredow: Love it. Well, that's a perfect ending. Uh, we could keep going on for another five hours, but we have to respect your time. It takes us to the martini, which is of course the last shot of the day on set. And also our little celebration of something fun to end our podcast on,

Dean Cundey: Well,

Dean Cundey: I've got a more,

Rob Bredow: you got it right there. Well done.

Rob Bredow: Disappointing Todd. Do you want to kick us off

Rob Bredow: with something for the martini?

Todd Vaziri: Sure. And mine's going to be a rare non movie related, Martini. I don't like to shop and I don't have good style and that's not a good combination for wearing clothes. I recently signed up for a service called Stitch Fix, which has several services like this. you could find a bunch, but Stitch Fix has worked out [00:51:00] really well for me. You go on the other website, you sign up,you get a series of photographs of shirts and pants and shoes. Do you like this? Do you not like this? It's like a questionnaire and it creates a style profile for yourself. And what they do is they send you a box of clothing. And which is great.

Todd Vaziri: It just shows up on your door and almost all of them are awesome. And if you don't like anything, you send it back and you don't pay for those and you only pay for the ones you keep. I like it. It's for men and women and I think even for kids now.

Todd Vaziri: It's a fabulous service. The prices are very reasonable and it has helped me get tiny bit of style

Todd Vaziri: more than I had before.

Todd Vaziri: So

Todd Vaziri: mine is Stitch Fix.

Rob Bredow: Excellent.

Dean Cundey: very interesting. I will have to look it up. My, uh, my wife will be interested. She, uh, was in the wardrobe costume business, for years in Canada. And then down here a little bit. But,that's, it's fascinating to know that that the computer has enabled that, you know, I mean, it's not like you would would have had to [00:52:00] go to the stitch fix store

Todd Vaziri: Right?

Dean Cundey: And there's none in your town or state.

Todd Vaziri: Exactly.

Dean Cundey: I tell you, these computers have done some amazing stuff long as we don't let them take over

Rob Bredow: Fair, as advised by all the sci fi movies we've ever watched We need to learn the lesson.

Dean Cundey: Exactly. No,

Jenny Ely: So I brought Midnight Mass, which is a series on Netflix. It came out in 2021, I think, but because, you know, I watch things over and over. I have watched. through it maybe three or four times now. Um, it is created and directed by Mike Flanagan who is one of my favorite filmmakers. I love everything that Mike Flanagan does and I think Midnight Mass is probably my favorite of the series that he's done, although the most recent was The Fall of the House of Usher, which was also pretty amazing.

Jenny Ely: But Midnight [00:53:00] Mass is, I guess you would call it gothic supernatural horror, maybe? It's definitely horror, but it's a lot of psychological horror as well. And I can't really talk too much about it without giving anything away, but um, it basically takes place on a very small secluded island, and in a Stephen King fashion, there's a mysterious person that shows up.

Jenny Ely: And then shenanigans ensue. So it's very, it's very creepy. It's a slow burn. Uh, it'll have you making lots of guesses and asking yourself, who's the real monster here? Uh, so I highly recommend it. I recommend anything by Mike Flanagan. Um, but Midnight Mass is definitely my favorite.

Rob Bredow: Thanks for that recommendation, Jenny. That sounds great. My martini for today is a game or a simulator more than a game. It's called Microsoft flight simulator. In 2020, they released what is the current version, but by the time this podcast is released, I think the 2024 version will be out.

Rob Bredow: And this was an application I found during [00:54:00] the pandemic actually, I played old versions of it back into the 1980s, but the 2020 version and now the

Rob Bredow: 2024 version has incredibly beautiful graphics. Computer graphics renderings of the entire world, pretty accurate simulations

Rob Bredow: of dozens of airplanes down to like, you can do the whole startup protocol and most of them. And if you want to get really geeky about talking to air traffic control, you can even get into some of that. but then of course you can fly the, airplanes around and you can

Rob Bredow: fly and find your own house. Uh, go, you know, near us here in San Francisco. There's lots of beautiful places to fly and you can even fly with real world weather.

Rob Bredow: Of what the weather is like that day, or make up your own and pick your own time of day. So, especially during the pandemic, it was a really nice way to feel like I was getting outside. I got a little into it. Definitely if you're into computer graphics and flying, it's, it's, an enjoyable, side hobby.

Rob Bredow: So Microsoft flight simulator.

Dean Cundey: Can you fly with just your keyboard? Or

Rob Bredow: yeah, some people go All

Rob Bredow: out and have entire planes built in their garage to be able to fly in a flight simulator, but you can do any [00:55:00] variation. You can fly with keyboard and mouse, but you probably want the best experience, you want at least a joystick, or if you want to get a little fancier, the more controls you have, the better. and probably the best time to buy one of those is not when the new version comes out, because when flight simulator 2020 came out, everybody who made control sticks were sold out for years because it ended up being very popular. try to buy it at least the day before, flight simulator 2024 comes out.

Dean Cundey: Good advice.

Rob Bredow: Dean Cundey, thank you so much for joining us today. It's just fantastic to get to meet you, to hear some of your stories. It's been great, so thank you so much.

Dean Cundey: Thank you.

Dean Cundey: Well, my pleasure. I’ll come back anytime

Rob Bredow: We would love to have you again. And thank you for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast.

Rob Bredow: If you've got a question for the show, or you'd like to suggest a topic, um, we'd love to hear from you. Uh, email us at lighterdarker. com. at ILM. com, or you can find any of us on social media. We will have our social media links posted in the show notes, or you could find Todd at tvaziri.com

Rob Bredow: [00:56:00] or me at robbrato. com show notes and transcripts for this episode and all episodes are found at ILM. com slash lighter, darker, that's all one word. 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 Brado. Today's episode has been edited by Chris Hawkinson.

Rob Bredow: And we want to thank ILM's whole PR team, led by Greg Gresby, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help make all this happen. So thank you so much for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast. And until next time, may your pixels be both lighter and darker.