Flavio Morales serves as Executive Vice President, Endemol Shine Latino, U.S. Initiatives, since November 2015.
Endemol Shine Latino, which currently covers the company’s Spanish-language sales and production in the U.S. and Mexico, will additionally cover all of Latin America in 2016 and is set to launch “Gran Hermano” with Telemundo in January and its first scripted drama “El Vato” for NBCUniverso next year.
Morales, an experienced programming executive and producer, is developing unscripted, scripted and digital content aimed at the U.S. Hispanic/English-speaking marketplace.
Prior to joining Endemol Shine Latino, Morales was EVP at BIG VIDA Entertainment, where he oversaw production of the NCLR ALMA Awards, along with executive producer Eva Longoria and he produced the Gerardo Ortiz concert film “Como Un Sueno.”
Previously, Morales was a top programming executive at NBCUniversal’s Telemundo’s cable network mun2 (now NBCUniverso), where he spent nearly a decade developing the network’s bilingual/millennial programming mix of series including hits “I Love Jenni,” “Fugitivos de la Ley” and “Larrymania.” While at mun2, Morales helped lead the network to the top of the U.S. Hispanic cable network ratings, ending Galavision’s 30-year run.
In 2008, Morales was honored with a prestigious NAMIC Vision Award, which celebrates and recognizes the cable industry’s commitment to quality and diversity, and in 2009, he was selected as one of Multichannel News’ 40 Under 40 visionaries.
Morales, a Los Angeles native, began creating programming for bicultural Latinos in high school when he formed “ILLEGAL Interns,” a public access show in East LA which showcased music, film, poetry, comedy and political activism. The show received critical acclaim and its programming was displayed at The Geffen Museum of Modern Art.
Morales currently lives in South Pasadena with his wife Laura and kids Elias and Alexa.
Axel Caballero, Executive Director of NALIP has extensive background in media production, community engagement and organizational development.
For well over a decade, Axel has been active on diverse media and campaign projects ranging from Latino media fairness and equality to immigration and human rights, with a particular emphasis in the development of visual and documentary film efforts. Axel is a contributor to the Huffington Post and was also the founder, executive director and producer of the Spanish language opinión site Metáfora Política.
Whether it is building community media campaigns, leading organizations or companies as Executive Director and Producer, or creating nationwide content and direction, Axel is always looking for new ways to innovate by building new brands through creative content.
Axel is a graduate from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied Political Science and International Relations as well as Law and Society and Visual Arts. He received his masters in International Law and Protection of Human Rights from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands with a focus on advancing rights through visual mediums.
David Bickford is the Head of TV Sales & Strategy and Multi-Platform Group Director at Bloomberg Media Group, serving in that role since September 2014. In that time David has been a key player in the largest video editorial transformation in Bloomberg’s history, including new programs With All Due Respect and Bloomberg . David has also been a leader in directing the global sales team toward a content-above-platform future. Prior to Bloomberg, David spent nine years in sales at the NBC News Group. His career began in editorial, producing Olympics documentaries and working on NBC’s Today show.
James Brown is the Executive Vice President of Content Distribution, Talent and Marketing Group for REVOLT Media and TV. A 20-year veteran of the cable industry, Brown brings indispensable knowledge and insight to his newly promoted role where in addition to Distribution and Affiliate Marketing, he now oversees the Talent and Consumer Marketing initiatives. Brown will continue to lead the charge to grow distribution for REVOLT’s content across traditional cable systems as well as OTT systems and the Web, in the United States and internationally. In the past year, Brown and his team secured distribution deals for the network with AT&T U-verse, DIRECTV, fuboTV, and more. Additionally, Brown is responsible for content acquisition and licensing strategy.
Prior to REVOLT, Brown spent a large part of his career working for ESPN in various roles with several leadership responsibilities. During his most recent position at ESPN, Sr. Vice President, Multicultural Content Development, Brown was responsible for developing, acquiring and packaging multicultural programming across ESPN Networks, Audio and ESPN.com, which increased ratings and profitability. He also led the development of business plans for revenue opportunities against the minority male audience. Additional responsibilities during Brown’s tenor at ESPN included general management of ESPN Rise and ESPNW events, television and digital video business; and leading the development and implementation of the acquisition strategy for the formation of ESPN high school business unit that included acquiring and integrating 4 businesses into one cohesive unit.
Brown started his professional career at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) where he held a variety of leadership roles in engineering, sales and marketing, logistics, strategic planning and information systems.
Brown is the Co-Owner and Co-Founder of ALFA Worldwide LTD, which concentrates on business development for a custom-tailoring company. Brown currently serves on the advisory boards for National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and Sophie’s Voice Foundation. He received his Bachelor’s of Arts in business administration and management from the University of Maryland and resides in Miami and New York.
As President of GroupM Multicultural, Gonzalo plays a key role in all aspects of the multicultural media and marketing efforts initiated by GroupM agencies Maxus, MEC, Mediacom, Metavision and Mindshare. The goal of the division is to provide clients with a truly relevant, informative and trustworthy point of view of multicultural markets and audiences across the US, resulting in tailored communications strategies based on in-depth knowledge of consumers.
Under Gonzalo’s leadership, GroupM Multicultural handles over $700 million in billings from clients such as Nestle, AT&T, Unilever, Anheuser Busch, Mars, Colgate, L’Oréal, General Mills, Target, Netlfix, Church & Dwight, Subway, Kimberly Clark and Bayer.
Gonzalo first joined the GroupM family in 2003 as Managing Director of MEC Argentina. During his three year tenure he developed a reputation for creative media thinking and activation. In 2006, he moved to New York to launch MEC Bravo and in 2009 he was instrumental in combining all the agencies under the GroupM Multicultural banner.
Gonzalo started his professional career at American Express Argentina and prior to joining GroupM, he worked for Visa, Hachette Filipacchi Agea and Editorial Televisa.
As the VP of Talent Development for HBO Kelly Edwards heads up all diversity efforts above and below the line for series, films, Cinemax and miniseries.
Edwards developed and runs the HBOAccess writing and directing programs which prepares talented diverse writers and directors for future success within the industry.
Prior to HBO, Edwards was a key corporate diversity executive at Comcast/NBCUniversal for over five years where she oversaw over 20 divisions, launched employee resource groups, and introduced diverse creative talent to NBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and Telemundo.
Edwards’ career has spanned both television and film having produced the movie of the week A CHRISTMAS DETOUR for Hallmark, the one hour series SEX, LOVE, AND SECRETS for UPN, serving as a network executive for UPN and Fox, and as a creative executive in features.
In 2000, Edwards co-founded Colour TV, a networking group for diverse creative executives. Colour TV has now branched into Colour Film, Colour TV East, Colour Digital, and Colour Assistants, all designed to connect current and future industry executives with one another.
Edwards graduated from Vassar College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater and serves on the Project Greenlight advisory board, a member of of NAMIC and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences having served for two years on the Academy Diversity Committee. She is also a former member of the Board of Trustees for NALIP, and served on the Los Angeles leadership council for the United Negro College Fund.
[ 00:00:19 ] Well I never thought that I would be in advertising. I was one of those kids that definitely wanted to tell stories. I’ve been telling them my entire life video was obviously a perfect medium for that. So I went to film school.
[ 00:00:32 ] And shortly after finishing there was a group of us that decided to start doing small commercials local commercials but really we just wanted to you like really cold doc here and script the content. And 15 years later that grew into a pretty successful digital agency. So we were bluechip agency of record for State Farm Scottrade NBC Universal Disney. All those fun places and it was really we were getting hardcore and attack and software and my business partner at the time wanted to dive headfirst into that world which I understood and I wanted to get back to content and kind of find into what I’m doing now.
[ 00:01:27 ] What you’re literally catching me I’m a month out of my month anniversary so not so much has changed. Adam RIDO at the panel here it may be who is our chief creative officer. I gave a little bit of a way of some of the changes that I’m hoping to implement from a business practice in the coming months. Visby started as a publisher right alongside Vice in-vivo and creating music and arts and street content from all over the world. They established an incredible. Filmmakers network that goes well beyond simply wringers but are truly part of our family and they’re in over 80 plus markets. Mark Burnett came in and partnered with envy and with that partnership brought us into a really unique content space of leveraging that incredible network of market scale. As well as commercial quality to develop probably some of the successful retail campaigns in history. One of them being Wal-Mart in which we were delivering you know anywhere of 270 packets of content from these film makers from all over 80 plus markets for commercial production broadcasting and the like. So we’ve been really really successful at doing that. And one of the things though if you look at the success of great big story obviously BuzzFeed and and Sicily’s publisher models. Were really interesting over the years of schooling over the years. We have continued to develop original content with these filmmakers as just test case studies. We are literally sitting on hundreds of hours of vaulted content that has never before seen. And so obviously with not only that operation.
[ 00:03:18 ] But with that vault content it makes perfect sense for us to get back into the publisher space. So in the coming months.
[ 00:03:25 ] We will see more of that so similar to BuzzFeed we give a lot of autonomy to filmmakers within what we refer to as Bimby nation which is is an incredible family of embedded community filmmakers from all over the world. With that we co-developed stories and many of them are stories of obviously human interest. And passion dueting everything that we’ve done for brands.
[ 00:03:57 ] But we really want to see what with the chops of these these kids family members and and what we refer to as our predators are right these predator prey producer writer editors directors some are more on that tour side and some of them are definitely more on like the shorts short docu series side.
[ 00:04:15 ] The story is that although we’ve been able to cultivate our ones of compassion of innovation entrepreneurship many stories from the heartland specifically that just haven’t been told. We talk a lot about the disconnect that media and entertainment in broadcast has with middle America. And have seen the outcome of that even as recent as the most recent election. And one of the things that Bimby is really excited about as we are sitting on gems of content that would really help us connect more effectively with those people because you can’t help but listen to their stories. And because the embedded filmmakers from those communities and we get access like you’ve never before seen. So what we’re hoping for is working with not just brands but with other publishers where white label for a number of large publishers and looking at opportunities in which we can distribute these stories through specific channels that make sense. So two ways in which publishers can work with and be the first is to simply task US was finding really incredible stories stories and which make perfect sense for for their media their publishing point of view their worldview.
[ 00:05:40 ] The other side though is legitimately turning that publisher’s editor in chief you know scale a network and putting them layering them directly over our filmmakers network where they can actually test for specific stories. The ability for any major story break to be captured from the lens of so many different perspectives and as little as 24 hours at times is very attractive to a lot of major publishers that are responsible for being that responsive in really intricate ways. So what we’re hoping to do is to create more of those relationships. The other thing that’s kind of the major differentiator is that obviously broadcast news has been able to capture stories on a dime using a very complex network of stringers and affiliates. But one of the things that we feel is lacking is the authenticity of those stories as well as the commercial quality of the stories both of which we’re really attempting to solve with our approach.
[ 00:06:54 ] Brands and publishers have very limited insight into the network. Or should I say control. All of our producers out of headquarters in Los Angeles are really the intermediary. So they are responsible for obviously isolating the threads the stories in which either the brands or publishers are interested in telling. And then I can tell you the war rooms and the white Portie sessions they go on. I’ve identified the perfect filmmaker for those stories. And then we co-produced those stories with that individual filmmaker. So we helped them cast we help them find talent. We helped them find a common thread. But from that point forward they get a tremendous amount of autonomy. So what ultimately the brands when they get it and the publishers really enjoy is that these are authentic stories that they have that they can do like a seal of approval of authenticity.
[ 00:07:58 ] So the beauty of India is we actually have very little overhead and our margins are probably the best I’ve seen in recent years.
[ 00:08:08 ] It took a lot for me to come out of retirement. It took something very special somebody that had proven this ability to scale at a significant value for both our partnerships our publishers our brands as well as ourselves. When you have a company that’s getting back into publishing that usually means that something went right because all of a sudden you know you’re taking on more risk. The fact that this has been happening all along should tell you that we’re doing considerably well. The way that we do that is through these again very special relationships we have with our creatives. It typically was that if you wanted to get into journalism or film or documentary filmmaking scripted commercials you had to move to one of the big cities which is where all the AOR is of course exist. The fact that these these incredible talent can can live in their hometowns can stay where they are and still work on incredible projects is a huge value for them. So there’s an inherent loyalty that exists without having to carry them on the bench when work isn’t coming in. And that works Conversely as well. So they’re coming to us with incredible ideas of stories and potential clients. So there’s a symbiotic relationship between us and these filmmakers and especially when they’re in other countries because they just don’t get that kind of American brand projects that you would see that you don’t see overseas.
[ 00:09:53 ] We likes to say that we follow the sun. We’re able to 24/7 have filmmakers that are going live per se in their unique markets and because they are provide the same type of autonomy that many of BuzzFeed filmmakers are. There is no top down guidance. We have done everything we can to support training cultivating the relationships in their own community showing them how we do it. But at the end of the day we don’t have a heavy hand in that at all. So the ability for us to turn on an international partner is the hardest part is finding those right people.
[ 00:10:36 ] It takes a special type of blood and insight in view in order to work with us. So the majority of our overhead and time is spent on identifying and finding these unique individuals. But once we have them once once they are unboarded they get to work at their own pace. They get to work on their own projects. We dont force feed them anything. They can thing they can come to us with idea or if its a huge massive global campaign we’ll push it out to them and they literally get the opportunity to raise their hands. But that’s that’s as far as that relationship essentially goes as well as as far as our pocketbooks are necessitated or necessary necessitated to support them.
[ 00:11:22 ] They get to have their own lives.
[ 00:11:30 ] When you have such a powerful tool as these embedded community filmmakers it would behoove us not to start to listen to them in their stories. So often in the broadcast world of journalism and publishing. We see things so ethnos actually from our metropolitan worlds and I think the future is leveraging a scalability of of community members who we have empowered to have a voice as equal of the metropolitan markets. And that’s a really interesting space to be in.
[ 00:00:20 ] I mean we’ve been asking ourselves a lot of questions about what is it that makes the original films look the way they do what what is it that people love about particularly when you’re talking about visual effects sounds like a spaceship because you know quite frankly there’s been a bit of a backlash to CGI visual effects over the last decade or so. You know they’re ubiquitous they’re everywhere and people have this kind of rosy tinted nostalgia for the visual effects shots of the original trilogy so we actually embarked on a whole sort of exploration of looking at shots from the original trilogy and recreating them in CGI to sort of figure out what it is that makes them look and feel like they do and what things to keep and what things to discard in order for the effects to feel modern and more realistic as we’re capable of doing now but they still have the feeling so we we went on a whole sort of research project about that and we took shots from episodes 4 or 5 and 6 and into digital versions of them or added digital like there might be a shot of them wanting to talk and I’m worried that a second falcon in the shot that was digital and just try and match it in as best as we could and and look at things. But there was all kinds of examination about the way shots were designed and the way the lighting looks and all kinds of things.
[ 00:01:35 ] And you know “Rogue One” is a film that takes place minutes before the events of episode four. You know the original Star Wars film so you know in terms of props and locations and costumes it’s super nostalgic it really looks and feels like the original films and yet Gareth Edwards shot the film in a way that makes it really feel really fresh and it’s written in a way that’s fair.
[ 00:01:58 ] It has I think more mature emotional stakes and some other things. So that was that was a lot of fun. And that played a role in it again and figuring out what to keep. You know what to emulate from the old film so that there’s that warm feeling of nostalgia. And then what to make new and fresh and original I mean that’s I mean that’s probably the central issue with computer generated effects these days is that since you can do almost everything almost anything you know there’s still some frontiers that we’re pushing on. But you know the question is what to do and how to do it. And a lot of that fortunately I think is falling back on the folks that it should be on which is the writers and the directors to like you know come up with really interesting cool concepts that are going to make people’s brains explode. So it’s the ideas themselves and then we can execute those ideas to the best of our ability and it’ll look amazing. But if you start with an idea that’s a cliche or it’s hollow in some way you know no amount of whiz bang visual effects obviously is going to fix that. I mean people are well aware of that now. But you know it’s for me it’s exciting to sort of say hey let’s make the ideas great. We know how to make it look great. We can make it look like anything you want. So give us a great idea. That’s that’s just putting the job back in the right people’s hands. Yeah. Oh yeah. Constraints are always a good thing. You know the limitations are great having to push against them is the best thing. In fact if we’re not beginning a project that has some aspects that we don’t know how to do yet which in itself is a sort of limitation. You know if it doesn’t frighten us a little bit to embark on a project then you know it’s not very interesting to me.
[ 00:03:58 ] And and that’s that’s part of having limitations it’s like if you’re if you’re not bumping up against the ceiling know what’s the point of doing it.
[ 00:04:06 ] So it’s kind of a weird rabbit hole you go down.
[ 00:04:16 ] I mean the obvious examples of this are you know when we moved from shooting on film to shooting digitally we frequently asked to add back in film grain or gate weave or other artifacts that you find with film cameras that that you know film engineers to the whole history of cinema have been laboring to eliminate and were asked to sort of re include them I mean almost to the point where they could you put a scratch on the head.
[ 00:04:42 ] No not quite there but you know almost to that point. But you know that’s fine. I think that’s part of the era that we’re in now.
[ 00:04:52 ] There’s this transition from from you know the old school to the new school and there are certain things that have to be preserved for a while but kids who grow up seeing film not seeing film but seeing digital projection and cinema. If I took them to the you know my son to a movie theater that’s actually showing a 35 millimeter print. I think he’d be like why is the image going like this and what are the scratches. Every time the real changes and all the dirt you know whereas I see that in my heart you know that he’s like What is that looks like soul.
[ 00:05:24 ] So I think you know that’s just a natural part of that but it gets into that whole question of gets into all sort of all these visual effects.
[ 00:05:32 ] We had shots of our starter stories in the film and when the shots they were in some of the first trailers for the film and I saw comments on line were like oh my god it’s amazing it looks like a model. And you know when I was growing up that was the last thing you wanted to hear with the visual effects out of some is it looks like a model. Now somebody says it’s a compliment. And then I saw somebody said was on Twitter this guy said it looks too much like a model. And then I was like OK I don’t even know what world I’m living in anymore. Like I don’t know I don’t even fond of that it looks too much like a mom.
[ 00:06:02 ] So it was it’s a very strange world we’re in. But you know again the younger generations come up and they have less and less love for. Film grain and things like that and it’s just going to be a new world. And people like us like me my age are going to have to you know get used to it. I know personally I’d love to move past it off like I know.
[ 00:06:31 ] There have been some experiments in the last few years.
[ 00:06:34 ] You know Inglese recent film and the Hobbit films and I guess it feels like the audience isn’t quite ready for that yet. Maybe but I find that stuff super exciting and you know I see all the same stuff everybody else sees where it’s like well it weird it doesn’t feel like film but I’m not sure that’s a problem. That’s just you know a natural result of moving on to new technologies and new looks and new fields and you know all of that stuff and I. Don’t know it’s I think it’s it’s been seen as a problem for so long but I don’t think it it’s an opportunity. And you know we’ll just keep moving on and eventually the all the old you know chromatic aberration or gate weave or what all these different artifacts of the old processes. I think ultimately will. Melt away. I just think people will stop needing to ask for them.
[ 00:07:25 ] It’s like there’s almost like a security blanket like you’re just like wants their favorite sweater so they can watch their their movie and and then you know eventually that’s going to go away.
[ 00:07:41 ] The democratization of tools. I don’t think it has harmed us at all. I think it’s been exciting. It’s good for the industry.
[ 00:07:48 ] Plus there’s that quote I forget who said it where you know somebody saying look you don’t like having a fancy word processor doesn’t help LP write any. But you know people who had pencil and paper for millennia and that doesn’t produce better not you know you all the same sort of number of people producing brilliant novels versus just writing.
[ 00:08:06 ] And I think it’s kind of the same with filmmaking and visual effects tools.
[ 00:08:12 ] And I’m I’m happy that the tools are way more accessible to young people I just think that’s a huge plus.
[ 00:08:18 ] What I think has been a lot tougher on my industry is the you know the global worldwide spread of of the work to areas where there are tax incentives and there are subsidies and so forth that’s made it a lot harder. That’s made people have to pick up their families and move to a different country and then all that tax incentive got yanked away by a change in government. OK now you get to move over here and I think that kind of thing has been harder on people. It’s created opportunities for sure. There are parts of the world now that have huge very muscular visual effects industries that are almost like they’re on steroids. You know they’re much larger than they would naturally be given where they are in the world.
[ 00:09:02 ] But but that’s been awesome operas meant awesome opportunity for the artist in those parts of the world. So you know it kind of depends on where you live and who you are as to whether it’s a problem or a solution to a problem. So but for those of us in California obviously the landscape has shifted rather rather dramatically in the last decade and a half. And you know we just have to keep on keepin on and figure out how to keep doing it. In the new world of visual facts and that’s what it is.
[ 00:00:19 ] Well it’s a multifaceted approach. Let’s start with that. I think you know looking at the original intellectual property. You know there’s so much value in not to kind of take off from coming in and trying to do a live action version is you have to start from kind of like you know a position you want to honor the original but also move it forward and do something that’s appropriate to live action. So I think that was kind of the intention was you know to kind of see past selves and the richness of this intellectual property which is not just ghost in the shell but in essence the second movie two TV series and two large mangas and kind of circle out. And then you see where we could take it in terms of like our own desires as filmmakers and the needs of the narrative in the script that we given .
[ 00:01:15 ] I mean the interesting thing was I did manage to get involved quite early which is you know for a cinematographer a great advantage and you know I managed to get out to Hong Kong quite early and do a scout. I took my stills camera took a lot of pictures you know I spent some time with the doctor you know the film is so based on Hong Kong and 2029 anime. And you know you see frames in the anime that relate to specific locations in Hong Kong.
[ 00:01:40 ] So we really got to know you know that city specific environmental qualities and the quality of life in that city the architecture you know the character of the city which is a very important character in the movies. I think that was the sort of stop and then it was kind of you know how can we really build this. This look you know to me building look is a multifaceted approach it’s not going to find the key with any one elements. I was you know it was lighting it was camera it was lenses and it was composition camera movement all of those things had to be addressed and they were all addressed in and in time.
[ 00:02:21 ] Some of the things we did were construct custom lenses which were built by dan to sasaki at Panavision to sort of perfectly complement the qualities of the 65 millimeter.
[ 00:02:33 ] Yeah I mean I started testing the Alexa 65 quite early knowing that I might use it in the film where you know I was looking for camera systems that I thought would be appropriate for the film. And it seemed like an obvious choice but you know when I first got it out you know I was getting great results out of that but I knew I wanted to buy particular texture to the images and it was it was certainly not a brittle digital texture that I was looking for. I was looking for you know really something that I’ve never quite seen before that kind of in time some of the quality of the atomize some of that softness that kind of very particular color palette that control of colour those beautiful secondary sophisticated and subtle colors that you see and animate it because they have so much time and so much expertise that being able to build that color palette you know every frame is kind of like a painting a water color. And so on. You know it’s a tax should turn to that material that I was very interested in and I wanted to kind of get something you know the honored that and so the camera in itself was a great starting point but I needed to build on that with lenses and lighting. I started talking to Don quite early about the project. He was very excited and we started talking about lenses that I liked and what the qualities were that I wanted to see in these particular lenses. And we ended up you know basically constructing a site.
[ 00:03:51 ] In fact two full sets one for mine and one for all splinter second unit of Prime lenses ranging from 24 to 180 in the 65 more for Nairo. First though it’s not another set of lenses quite like them but then they have been the starting point for a whole generation of lenses which is not produce father movies wasn’t scared at all because they were my friends.
[ 00:04:25 ] You know along with Panavision you know I’d you know we’d we’d created this lens full lighting on that camera you know.
[ 00:04:32 ] So by the time I actually used them that I was very happy with the way they were performing and any of them that weren’t happy just went straight back to Don and he’d adjust them or they’d go and be reconstructed some of them.
[ 00:04:47 ] So you know we had there was there was a bit of back and forth but essentially pretty much you know executed a very very very good job of villains as you know I was very happy with what I was saying from day one.
[ 00:05:07 ] Yeah I studied in general which you know I was a big fan of anyway. But I went back and revisited all that stuff.
[ 00:05:15 ] I also use my photographic research in Hong Kong extensively. There was a combination of the sort of intersection of those two things you know I was like are the. One of the colors found in my like.
[ 00:05:26 ] What colors do you see appearing again and again and Olomide you know that coming out of this Japanese culture you know that very much sort of evolves into this very sophisticated color palette but that it was like well was that coming from well actually in the Ghost in the Shell maybe is it really a lot of it comes from Hong Kong and the lighting that’s very specific to Hong Kong which comes out of the nail in the alley do you like this on the street then kind of gets trapped in this atmosphere particles in the because of the microclimate and that creates a kind of overall sort of my utmost kind of time. You know what continent Hall would call room tone but it’s a it’s a sky wife of room time that is basically trapped in a neon light and the atmospheric particles of the of the sky which creates this kind of Goliath. So that was something that was very specific to a quality that I was trying to capture and I think you know Mike talked a little bit about my process of doing that with the smart the atmosphere are already smart and the very fine levels to which that was manipulated to trap this light. But then there was also the specifics of Viale the lights and how we program bought that colour information into a series of idealise across a range of manufacturers and built custom versions of lights as well to do specific things build them into sets supplement costume’s Well that’s definitely a quality of of Hong Kong as a city thing.
[ 00:06:57 ] I think you see a certain amount of that also and the eye when you look at that it is they did capture that. And so you know I was basically using coloured light on the set amount of atmosphere to kind of recreate a very particular type of lighting. So yeah we designed a 28 color palette coming from the stills influenced by the end of my. And that was then programmed across all the different units all the different manufacturers and controlled bar lighting desks at any point I could pull up any one of my 28 colours on any light on sight and therefore I had very quick flexibility to actually react and respond to potential choices that I might call the direct might might but also could go in with a way like there but what kind of colours I want to see in that suit and then all that information was able to be passed on. You know for that matter Deiter of the desk through the visual effects so they’d know that if there was supposed to be a window with a street outside you know and I was putting a certain color palette through they could build that solid grounds and lighting interactive lighting outside of the same colour. So it was all about kind of juggling the photography and the visual effects as well.
[ 00:08:15 ] Well I think all of this technology was kind of out you know to a certain extent it’s a case of like you know taking it that stage further and kind of customer it mining it for your own needs and I think the great thing is that with so many creative people in this industry and so many talented people manufacture stuff that when you go to them with an idea I’ve found people to be very receptive and actually be willing to kind of prototype products and test products and evolve products and that’s why we were able to do that in this film because partly because of the time that we had. But also I think because we had such a specific vision and I reported on the concept design as the walk to night and give the visual effects supervisor you know John when he came in you know we’re very unified in what we’re trying to achieve and so we didn’t kind of get on a lot of car rides it was all pretty much leading in one direction and we kind of evolved and streamlined that technology to sort of Puppis that stuff.
[ 00:09:13 ] Actually shooting a Lyca rangefinder digital camera. Well I’m actually no really just because that’s the camera I’ve always used.
[ 00:09:25 ] So I come out of the veil like a user and sex and then I’ve kind of moved into that is just like a camera but I’ve got my light like cold lenses which I like.
[ 00:09:33 ] So it’s also a very small camera that if you’re running around like somewhere like Hong Kong you know you can kind of be a little bit incognito in a little of what I was doing was what the street photography was just meant. You know calm rummaging around and digging around so that we could find. So you’re able to operate which is while the fighting journalist sees that camera and you know back in the Macklem days it was the official coming out of them the Magnum official photo of commerce.
[ 00:09:57 ] You know they like it because you look at an artist it’s kind of discreet and quite to be specific we only had one law.
[ 00:10:11 ] I mean I’ve sort of my philosophy is a little like less variables you have the more control you have as the caller. And for us my question in somewise and that comes back from a sort of film training where I buy it you know we print one lights and you know you’d know that if you know if you were using a particular set of Prince lights and you’ll print dailies if anything was off you know you’d know because your print lives would change or you know the printer would say to you if I print these lights you’re going to be a bit out. Or you could say you know what when I kind of set up the flow for the film for Ghost in the shell. I was really I was interested in that level of control. You know my idea to do it was really to monitor everything and P3 color space for monitoring and send them off space to start with. And then every night project dieties and a fair trial in P3 color space. So I was able to dig on what it meant was that I would be lighting on site and quite an interactive whitewash on my desk.
[ 00:11:13 ] I mean I would go with a specific idea of where I wanted but then the shot might evolve and I might see you know for example Scala walking through the room and I’d say well I need to kind of bring up that bank of lights Harris you stopped part of the room and there’s a lot of interactive lighting going on anyway so I could do that kind of a live mix but I’d always be going through the single lot that cut the color palette and controls very even that meant that everybody was looking up effectively kind of a rendition of what I wanted to say and I was having that confirmed every night for myself and the first one I would see there was all of the guys walk and white pies to you know walking with us and you say the marbles to turn around the dieties really fast so I could actually see the morning’s work that evening.
[ 00:11:57 ] It just meant we knew exactly why we were putting things in and then obviously as Mike explained you know you can’t deny certain things promise to change a little bit but you still effectively people have been looking up you know one version of the film is called from from inception to completion well I say of got to stay calm and surround yourself with the best technicians you can got to support them.
[ 00:12:30 ] And I think you know I mean the thing about using all this kind of approach is it’s a very detailed approach.
[ 00:12:35 ] But I think ultimately you’re still you know one of your primary jobs is obviously to kind of tell a story until you know you know to tell the narrative and to kind of you know my doctor is comfortable and to support the doctor and to plan sequences. I think the thing is if you deal with this kind of work in advance it in a way it liberates you to then when you’re on set to kind of make instinctive choices and make you know you know do the kind of real job as a cinematographer which is you know to tell a story.
[ 00:13:11 ] Well I think you know I think the thing is the tools are getting more sophisticated. And the thing is you actually you know you’re not doing any of this stuff blind you know when you’re shooting film it’s in your imaginations.
[ 00:13:22 ] You know it really you have to visualize how the emulsion is going to translate your lighting this environment into a negative.
[ 00:13:32 ] I think with digital cinematography you know if you design the correct water flow you can see the evidence of the wall image on a screen you know in real time and that’s you know very empowering in a sense.
[ 00:13:44 ] Otherwise you could say well why does your imagination play into that.
[ 00:13:48 ] You know you I mean is becoming less less powerful because they’re not driven so directly by your imagination and will by an image in front of us you know some people might say a lot but I think certainly in terms of like all the technology that’s going on on your site you know you are able to view an image and see what’s happening. So you know if you’ve got a palace that’s flickering on your phone you’re going to snap and you can see it on a white form and so these are just technical details that you have to keep on all.
[ 00:00:20 ] Well it’s part of a culture. The company is always to look at is there a better way of doing something.
[ 00:00:28 ] Can we can we try something different that that improves this or makes the workflow better for people. So we don’t shy away from challenges to our projects that are the most fun and to being the most rewarding are the ones that at the beginning you look at and you’re not entirely sure how you’re going to do it. That’s where the real excitement is. It’s probably it’s working with a client that’s kind of understanding what their comfort level is with trying something new and different that what level of innovation is required on a show is not just completely story dependent. As I say some of my favorite projects are the ones where you read through the script and you aren’t entirely sure how something’s going to be done and the innovation that comes out of trying to meet that challenge is some of the most rewarding things that we do and where some of the best innovations come from. Now there’s certainly a class of innovation that comes from deliberate planning where where we have worked on a particular bit of tech on one show and we see application on another so we’re going to keep working on that to try and improve things.
[ 00:01:46 ] But one of the more exciting bits of tech are the ones that are completely unplanned that are just purely in response to a line that we read in the script. There’s a lot of information information sharing that happens at the company in particular. We do a thing called C.G. weeklies where after a show is wrapped.
[ 00:02:13 ] The interesting and unique aspects of that show from a technique or technological standpoint are presented to the whole company. So it’s a chance for you to see what they did on Warcraft who didn’t work on Warcraft or what’s happened on this show. So yeah we do try and spread all that info so everybody is aware of what tech’s been developed and it’s important because you can often get siloed on a show where you’re working very hard on a show and there’s some really amazing thing happening over on the other side of the company but I’m just working on this. So we try and fix that by this periodic information sharing but part of the culture of the company is is one of very open information sharing and helping people out with things. So it does happen naturally because it’s a culture that we’ve fostered there since the beginning.
[ 00:03:12 ] How does a variety of factors.
[ 00:03:21 ] You know we you to choose from what’s being made. Right. So we have to look and see what projects are on the horizon and start talking to the filmmakers about those there to some extent. You know because of the size of the company we have to keep booking a certain amount of work to stay the company that we are. So we’re looking for things that number one we’re looking to work with best filmmakers. We’re looking for projects that can create striking and memorable imagery and then the last one is we also have to feed the machine. So it’s trying to satisfy all those requirements you know get enough work to keep the people busy to drive enough revenue that supports the R&D staff that we are we have. So it’s trying to balance all those factors as well.
[ 00:04:13 ] So I don’t think that there’s anything that we do that doesn’t have some kind of merit to it artistically but you have to find the right balance of of this is this one that will keep a lot of people employed and this is one that’s there may not be a lot of profit in this one but it’s really good for us creatively.
[ 00:04:46 ] For subs I did I was a model maker so I built those miniatures and did that for probably five five years or so before I was gradually making a transition into camera work and I got hired at Island as my control camera assistant.
[ 00:05:12 ] You know I feel very privileged to have been invited into what’s sort of become a second family for me now that George Lucas is back in the late 70s sort of single handedly created this wonderful filmmaking community in Northern California and I was privileged that I get invited to to join that family and they’re just really wonderful people.
[ 00:05:40 ] I loved the atmosphere there. And as soon as I started the company I felt like I found my people. This is this is fantastic.
[ 00:05:50 ] And it’s not hard to stay at a company where you feel like you really belong and you really like all the people that you work with.
[ 00:06:00 ] So it’s what Time flies.
[ 00:06:10 ] Well I came up I came up through the ranks.
[ 00:06:12 ] I was a technical assistant first then a camera assistant and then a camera operator and that I was working computer graphics there’s a kind of technical director. And then as sociate visual effects supervisor and then finally the visual effects supervisor and you know the island is a meritocracy what happens is as people that I perform well on the projects that impress the folks that they’re working for you get more responsibility on upcoming projects. You know the trajectory that you take through the company is really related on the the talent and how well you execute and work with other people.
[ 00:07:07 ] I did camera work for a good long time and I’ve enjoyed that quite a lot. I know I am amateur photographer so I still. Do work with cameras.
[ 00:07:27 ] Something I’m very excited about is some of the technological advances of a lot of the filmmaking tools that we’re working on. We we’ve had a high dynamic range pipeline in Ireland for some time now we always can work on this broader dynamic range even if the exhibition is less than something that’s been happening recently is high dynamic range exhibition theatrical exhibition and home video exhibition and I’m very excited about that. I love it. I think it’s it’s very visually pleasing. So we sort of talking about high dynamic range relation to Roeg one from the very beginning. We did have a theatrical high dynamic range released this still aren’t a lot of theaters that exhibited. But as we were in the final weeks of the show I made a pitch for I want to try and make a hot anemic range home video release of this the best version of that that we can make it. So I did get an opportunity to have a small crew to recomposed some shots and fix some things. As you’re looking at shots on a broader dynamic range canvas you inevitably want to make some changes to rebalance this versus that. And I’m super pleased with how that turned out. The home video color timing hypotonia hypoallergenic range hopefully a color timing I think is a spectacularly good looking version of the movie in fact it might be the best looking version of the movie.
