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- [00:06]
A
Welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast, an intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McCaleb, I'm one of the editors of Pluribus, including this episode, and I'm the host of this podcast. And this is our seventh bonus episode. These are more focused one on one conversations as opposed to the roundtables on the regular podcasts. And they're often cast and crew who aren't able to physically be in Los Angeles, which is where we record. And that's definitely true with today's guest, another returning champion from Better Call Saul. First as our a camera operator and then as a director of photography. And you've definitely heard him mentioned on the podcast before. So without further ado, please welcome our guest director of photography, Paul Donachi.
- [00:55]
B
Hey, Chris, nice to be here.
- [00:57]
A
It's great to have you, Paul. Thanks for making the time. So I don't remember if we talked about this, but I see here that before you are one of our directors of photography, you are a camera operator for us. But also, did you shoot Formula One?
- [01:11]
B
Yes, I did, as a. It was a documentary kind of deal and I was very young. It was for a cigarette company basically. And they had their annual conference every year they sponsored one of the cars. So it was like a little, a 15 minute film for them to show their conference. But we had a year's going around the world filming it for them. So it was. And it was every two weeks you'd go off somewhere else. It was great fun. I, I wasn't into Formula one when I first started, but after a couple of years of doing that, I really got into it. It was, it was great fun, great fun to do.
- [01:43]
A
I mean, that's so topical now with the Formula one movie, which took them years and years and years. It seems like if you're going to shoot race cars, even though they drive by fast, it takes a long time to shoot it.
- [01:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, we had a 16 mil camera. We had a pass to go anywhere we wanted on the track or in those days, we literally would walk across the track and crazy stuff like that and go in the pit lane and all of that stuff during the race, shooting all the testing and met all the drivers, got to know all the drivers. The first year I did it, it was for Lotus. Ayrton Senna was driving for Lotus at the time. So we got, I got to know Ayrton quite well. And you know some other great drivers. I mean, Monaco race, we had A boat in the harbor. We just, you know, it was just. It was wonderful fun.
- [02:28]
A
I was going to make a joke about how that must have prepared you to shoot Carol Sterka in her house or in Albuquerque. But with this episode, with 107, you were finding all kinds of new ways to shoot cars, both Carol and Minutsos. There's so much driving in this episode, so many montages. First of all, I love the photography that you did for all of it, but this episode in particular, every time we would get dailies, it was such a joy to dive into it.
- [02:57]
B
The hardest challenge on this, this episode really was when not to shoot. Actually, we went to the Canary Islands with Adam and Jen and everybody, and we, we searched all these locations and there were so many good ones. We eventually paired them down and ended up with some great locations. And that little mg, I mean, I asked very early in prep, is any chance of having a convertible MG rather than a hard top? Because getting a camera inside a small little MG like that was going to be tough, but. And, and luckily the guys came up with the convertible and we could shoot around the car and you could, you could see Minusos, you know, out there in the sun, driving along. I think that helped a lot.
- [03:38]
A
So that's really interesting. So when you read the script, at what point did you get brought in that they were going to have this mg? And the fact that you. That's. I didn't know that you were so instrumental in making sure it was the exact type of MG that we got.
- [03:55]
B
Vince and Jen, I think, had decided, basically this is an Adam as well, I'm sure, decided this is the kind of car we want. And they did look at hard top options. But as you know, I put my two cents in and said, please, can we have a convertible? And then luckily the guys went with it in the end.
- [04:09]
A
And I love that car. So you saying, like, where part of it was where to shoot, where not to shoot. Can you talk about some of the challenges of shooting in the jungle, like on La Palma or in the, in the Canary Islands? I know light is always an issue as a dp, like, what was it like shooting there?
- [04:25]
B
I mean, it was great fun. We had a Spanish crew who were fantastic. They're really good crew. They, Rich Sickler was the first ad, and me and Rich did a fantastic job as well of scheduling stuff because we did have some challenges and obviously I've always got my requirements that schedule wise as to where the sun is and all of that stuff, which sometimes can be achieved and Sometimes it can't. But Rich did a fantastic job of slotting it all in and getting it all in the order that I wanted, basically. So we had the best sunlight. And some of the locations, we was down a little one man path, basically. We had to carry equipment box by box down through the jungle, down into this little valley where me and Adam went on the scat. We said, well, this area, we could probably do five or six of the vignettes in this one little area. So we found this spot which, you know, had a waterfall, it had rocks, it had trees. But it was a challenge for everybody to get the stuff down there and get it back out again. And, you know, we had limited daylight. Obviously, one of the scenes we did down there, I did it day for night because we didn't have many nights stuff in the jungle. So I shot one that it was daylight, but we made it look like night in the camera. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the driving stuff, you know, was. Was tricky because these little roads around the Palma in. In the Canaries, they're used all the time. There's one road around the island, so we had to block the road off for a few minutes so we could shoot and then let all the traffic through and. But there's some beautiful scenery there. And like I said, it was really hard to choose which ones not to shoot because there was so many options we had. But I think we chose the right ones. And I'm happy that everybody thinks the episode looks cool, you know.
- [06:06]
A
Oh, I love it. And it was the kind of thing where, you know, when somebody would come by the office, even before we were finished editing it, Vince would say, hey, come take a look at this. Yeah, he was really excited about it, as were we all. So as a dp, what are the challenges as far as shooting a montage? Like, there's a lot of montages in three and in five and in seven in three, there's loading up sprouts in five, there's Carol putting the pavers over Helen's grave, which has that amazing, as Gordon called it, the well of souls shot with the sun in seven. It's just like nonstop montages, especially throughout South America. How do you, as a dp, as far as you already said scheduling and time, how do you work with the director and the assistant director when you see stuff like that in a script? What is the process for you as a DP of making sure that all of that stuff actually happens and happens so well?
- [07:07]
B
Well, my first priority really is to make sure that we have enough coverage. I mean, as you know, as an editor, you can't have too much coverage. Absolutely. In Spain, we had limited time, so we would get as many shots as we could, but each little section as we could. And, you know, the daylight is a challenge. You know, you only have so many hours of daylight, so. But as a dp, you think, well, these two shots tell the story. Let's move on. And if we need three shots on the next section, we'll get three, you know, or one shot can work, you know, and obviously the director. Well, Adam's great skill is he knows what he wants before he gets there. He knows pretty much how he wants to cut it in his head. And he knows if he's got the shot, you know, and he knows if he's got the scene.
- [07:51]
A
So he is definitely extremely efficient.
- [07:55]
B
Yes, absolutely. And, I mean, that's great. He knows what he's going to use, you know, and what tells the story. There was one scene in, I remember, with Adam, we were in a church. The sun was in the right place. It was. I was going to light the church. I had 18 big lights outside the church, ready to go. Whing or gaff, Adam, already. But the sun was perfect in the church at the time. We had a bit of smoke in there to give it the shafts of light, but the sun was in the absolutely perfect spot. Adam, who'd been shooting quite quickly for the last few weeks, I said to him, adam, you've got five minutes to shoot this scene. And I said, you can do it. You get three shots and you've got five minutes, and we'll have to bring all the lights in and start lighting it. And he rose to the challenge, said, oh, great. I love that idea. Let's just shoot it. So we rushed in there and we shot it, and I think that church turned out pretty nice.
- [08:45]
A
Oh, it's so beautiful. Yeah. I mean, yeah, three shots. And I think we used. We used all but one angle, and one of them was an A camera and a B camera. We used one. I think the A camera. Yeah, I love that stuff. Is so beautiful. That's amazing. That. I mean. Well, I think that speaks also to your knowledge. And I can't remember if Adam talked about that on the podcast or if he talked about it just in real life. To me, telling that story about how you just kind of were like, okay, the sun's there. The sun's gonna be there. Okay, and go. And go. Gordon tells a story about you as well, talking about the sun and saying, this is when you can shoot. And you gotta shoot now with that well of Souls shot in 105 where Carol is at the car and it's on what looks to be like a 80,000 millimeter lens from miles away.
- [09:34]
B
I think it was on a. It was on a 400, I think on the end of a zoom. I mean, that was always going to be at the end of the day. And we were lucky that day that the sun, there was no clouds and it was a good atmosphere. But the one I really nailed down with Gordon was his I Am Cuba.
- [09:49]
A
Shot right at the beginning. The exodus in 105 from the hospital.
- [09:54]
B
Five. Correct. Yeah. I mean, we did big rehearsals for that stuff and me and Gordon had worked out the shot prior to everybody turning up. And then I told Matt, the a camera operator, you know, roughly what the shot was. He practiced it the day before. As I said, you've got to shoot this by 8am because otherwise you'll have a crane shadow. I mean, it wasn't about, you know, it was literally about getting a crane shadow across Everybody. So another 10 minutes and we got it, you know, we got it in time. But that wasn't about how it looked really. That was more about the physicality of the sun will just be behind the crane, big shadow and everybody, and unusable. So that's why we practiced it.
- [10:29]
A
You know, that speaks to your experience too. Just to know if somebody's just starting out. They wouldn't necessarily understand the sun in that way. I mean, you know, the great gaffer in the sky, basically, he's sort of working with him. And we talked to Marshall a little bit on a bonus podcast earlier in the season. But I'd love to hear from you how you've approached this show differently from Better Call Saul. We have a different aspect ratio. We have these Kodachrome looks. The tone overall, I mean, it is such a different show, even though much of it is in Albuquerque and much of it also stars Rhea Seehorn. What has been your approach as far as doing it differently from Saul?
- [11:09]
B
Well, the interiors of Carol's house, I kind of wanted that to be a very low key, soft light environment during the day. I mean, the, the practical lights at night kind of govern the way you are, but during the day the curtains are closed. You know, she's blocked herself off from the world. So I just wanted to be very soft. Whereas on Saw we'd probably have a slightly more hard light coming in and, and stuff. And I wanted to be a little bit more observational as well. So we'd shoot from other rooms into other rooms, which the set allowed. Denise has built this set. We can look from one room to the other. And I thought that sort of observational style was. Would be interesting, as if the others are always. What? They're always watching her. So I kind of wanted to sort of mirror that a little. The camera's watching this person in her house, but the others are doing that as well. You know, wherever she goes, whatever she's doing, you know, she's got this drone following around, you know. But generally speaking, I mean, a lot of these places shoot themselves in a way, like sprouts, for example. You know, it's a supermarket. All the lights are on at night. They're off. But, you know, that sort of dictates how it's going to look in a way. So, I mean, you choose. You choose the way you light stuff, depending on what the scene is and what story you want to tell. Really, the aggregate where she goes in and finds all the food stuff, it had to be frightening, you know, so that sort of dictates the way you like stuff. And the LUT that Vincent Marshall created and Dave, the three of them created this amazing LUT as well, which gives it a great look, all these highlighted colors and stuff.
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A
Dave being Dave Cole, the colorist at fotochem.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If you listen back to the El Camino podcast that we did for the Breaking Bad movie, we talked to Dave. He's got this great accent. Do you continue to collaborate with Dave as it goes along? Because you're involved in the color.
- [13:00]
B
When you guys provide us with the final cut, we go to the. Call it the grading session or color timing session. And I'm in there with Dave for a couple of weeks, just going through every shot, darkening lightning, changing little bits and pieces. You know, nowadays you can do so much in color, but the base has to be there. You have to get the right base for everything. And then you can tweak little bits and pieces. You know, you can make a little. An area of a room look a bit darker or brighter or bring up a face if it's too dark or to bring it down if it's too bright. I mean, it's subtle changes, but it's a very, very important process. And Dave's fantastic. You put little vignettes around things and you tweak it, you know, to. To get the final product.
- [13:41]
A
You know, something that we talk about in the office, too, with you, with Dave, with Marshall, with. I mean, really so many parts of the team is that it's never just about this is going to look cool or isn't that beautiful? It's always about approaching it from how does this make sense for the story? Like how does this enhance the story? Tell the story.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah. Old Manusa says travel a long way. So you need the time change. You know, you need to tell that the days have changed and he's moved on. Obviously you do that with hair and makeup as well and the condition he's in. But you know, you have to get those evening scenes in so you know that he's, it's the next day and he's stuck at night, you know, so that's all about, you know, moving him along over a few days. And you help that story with the lighting sometimes.
- [14:23]
A
I did have a question, you know, with this season, the first season of Pluribus. You were working with a lot of people with Gordon three times and then Adam Bernstein. But you know, we've heard on other podcasts, but Rhea Seehorn, you know, she was a first time director on an episode of Better Call Saul and she just talked about the great pleasure that she had working with you. And I just wondered, you know, what do you look for in a collaborator when somebody is coming in a first time director? You know, I think we have a lot of aspiring filmmakers who listen to this podcast as well. And what do you look for when somebody is coming in and how do you approach working with somebody who's, who's doing it for the first time, whether first time ever or the first time with this group of people?
- [15:09]
B
My first premise is that you're there to help that director make a film for them. It's their film, they're making it. So you're there just to help them to do that and to do the best you can for them. So they have the vision that they wanted from the start. So I mean all directors have strengths and weaknesses and any weakness that you see, especially in a new time director, you just try and help them out. If they're not sure about how to block a scene or how many shots they need for the edit. I mean I always think the more shots the better. The more you can get in the, the better. And I mean I know Vince does like to do a lot of stuff in one and we, and with Ray, we did a couple of scenes in not one, one shot, but we, we covered parts of the story in one shot occasionally. But yeah, you just got to help them out when whatever they need. One of the great strengths a lot of directors is being able to work with the actors and get performances out of them. That's not something I do, or I can see a good performance when I see it. But all the other technical stuff, I will always try and help out a director because it's ultimately. It's their film, you know, that's.
- [16:10]
A
No, that's great. You know, One other scene I just wanted to hear you talk about is in this episode, in 107, when. That's when Carol goes and has that solo dinner. She gets all dressed up and puts on the player piano and. And it's on this great rooftop restaurant at the top of the Hotel Chaco. Yeah, talk about shooting that. Because the lighting is just perfect. The dusk, the dark. It's just like the perfect time. Talk about shooting that scene.
- [16:39]
B
That was one that I said to Adam, you know, when we go up here, it would be lovely to see the mountain. It's a night scene. It was set as a night scene, but I said to him, it'd be great to see the mountains, at least at the beginning of the scene. So we decided that we should get our first couple of wider shots during the golden hour, you know, the dust period, when he could see the mountains. And if you look at the scene obviously later on in the scene, as you know, it takes all night to shoot this. So obviously you lose the mountains at some point. But we kind of did the wide shot so you can see them. And we put in lights. You know, we put a load of lights around the edges and we put lights in the ceiling and stuff to light Ray up. And so, I mean, we lit the whole place. But, you know, with great help from Waylon and his pre rigging team, they get in there and they do all their stuff and, you know, I sort of say roughly what we're after. And I say, I wouldn't mind some lights around this balcony and I need a light above Ray and. But yeah, we wanted to see the mountain. So it was scheduled again so we could do the first couple of wide shots. We were in there an hour or two earlier. Got all our tracks laid down, got it all ready, and at the right moment, we switched the camera on, you know. But yeah, that was a great scene. I love that scene. And funny too, in a way.
- [17:46]
A
Oh, yeah. And sad and sad. That's so great about this show. It's all of those things, you know, Paul, you make it all sound so easy. You're definitely. It's like, just turn the camera on and did it at the right time. But there's just so much that goes into it. And I know, I'm grateful for everything that you bring to the table before the camera even rolls. And then once you, like you said, you turn the camera on at the right time and you just get those great images.
- [18:13]
B
Yeah. I mean, any story, any movie, it's, you know, 95% script and acting and 5% everything else. But for me, it's 95% prep. You have to get in there, and before you turn up, you know exactly what you're going to do, you know, and how you're going to do it. Things change, obviously, during an evening's filming or a day's filming, but you fundamentally know what you're going to do and you prep for it. And that's. That's crucial.
- [18:37]
A
Does a director ever, especially for these montages, does the director ever come when you're, you know, you're doing the prep and I. I imagine you're with the director and probably the assistant director, and they say, okay, I want to do this shot, this shot, this shot, this shot. How do you tell them you're not going to be able to get all those shots because we won't have time? Does that happen?
- [18:58]
B
You don't tell them. You. You never say, say no to a director is not a great idea. I mean. I mean, what. What you can do is you can guide them in other directions. You know, you say, well, that sounds great, but how about if we do this? Would that encompass those two moments you want to capture? You know, if I. If, you know, you won't have enough time in the day, you say, well, this. If we did it like this, maybe we could encapsulate everything you want. But it was. That would save us having to do X, Y and Z, you know, and just put it out there and see what they say and if they like the idea or not. It's a negotiation process. And that's something else that can happen in prep.
- [19:34]
A
So that's.
- [19:35]
B
And experience of our directors, they all know, anyway, what you can achieve. I mean, I mean, Adam's been doing it all his life, and Gordon's done loads of stuff and, you know, and Vince, obviously, who I did a few episodes with, and Saul, and they all know what they're doing. They know what's. What you can get and what you can't get in a day for sure.
- [19:54]
A
Well, awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing some of your process on this show. We really appreciate it.
- [20:01]
B
Thank you, Chris, and thank you for having me. It's been fun.
- [20:04]
A
All right. Thanks so much to Paul Donachi for joining us on this bonus episode for 107. And thank you for listening to this bonus episode of Pluribus, the Official Podcast, an Apple TV podcast produced by Hybrid Productions and and Sony Pictures Television. Be sure to follow on Apple Podcasts to get the next episode in your feed and watch Pluribus on Apple TV where available. Our editor and mixer, it's Nicholas Tsai. Theme music by Dave Porter. Associate producers are Alana Hoffman, Justin Verbeest and Nicholas Tsai. Executive producers are Jen Carroll and me. Your host, Chris McCaleb. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.