MGU Interview: Cinematographer SALVATORE TOTINO

After a highly successful run shooting commercials and music videos, Salvatore Totino was chosen by Oliver Stone to lens his gridiron epic, Any Given Sunday. As a first feature, the mammoth project tested Totino's powers of vision, endurance, and resilience, and he reached the finish line in stunning fashion, providing the film with a visual landscape that vividly realized After his follow-up feature, the Roger Mitchell-directed Changing Lane, starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, Totino began a fruitful and lasting collaboration with director Ron Howard, a relationship that has thus far spanned the course of six films, including The Missing, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Frost-Nixon, and The Dilemma. Totino's next feature, Welcome to People, written and directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Chris Pine and Michelle Pfeiffer, will be released sometime in 2012. I grew up in Brooklyn, Italian immigrant parents who came over from Italy, and grew up in a very working-class home. And in my house, you either went to college or learned a trade. And when I went into high school, my grades weren't that good heading into high school, so my parents encouraged me to go to a trade vocational high school. And I went to this school called William E. Grady in Brooklyn, where I learned how to be an electrician, residential, commercial electrician. But in high school, my grades started doing a lot better, and a college counselor encouraged me to go to college. My math skills were very good. So I went in the direction of electrical engineering with the New York Institute of Technology for about two and a half years, and I was like, oh, my God, I can't do this. So I dropped out of school, and I went to work for an electrical contractor, and I was trying to figure out my life at that point. I was 20 years old, 21 years old. And, you know, the idea of making a living through art was not something that was looked upon in my house, the household, because my parents didn't understand it, really. So in trying to find myself, I decided to take the New York City policeman's exam. I was like, oh, maybe I want to be a cop, blah, blah, blah, you know. So I took the exam, and I scored extremely well. I got two questions wrong, but because I was white Caucasian and affirmative action was very big in 1985, I was put on a secondary list, so I didn't make the first round at the police academy. And I say this, and I'm telling you this because because of this, it sent me in a different direction. So at the time, I was sort of upset about affirmative action because I was like, well, I scored really well on this test, and now I can't follow through. So instead of going in the police academy July of 85, I was due to go in like January of 86. So that summer, I started looking at taking some photography classes. I was always interested in photography. And right before I was able to do that, this distant relative was at a family gathering one night, and we started talking, and he worked for a commercial film company. He invited me to come see him, and I came, visited him at work, and I was like, wow, this is really interesting. How can I get in this business? And he's like, well, you know, you've got to work as a PA, and you need to sort of quit your regular job and try to hustle up some PA work. So I went and I quit my job. My boss, electrical contracting boss, thought I was nuts because I was doing really well. He didn't quite understand what I was going to do with myself. And my relative wound up getting me a job for a day on a commercial. And he said, look, if you do well, I'll remember it too. It was Duncan Hunt. And if you do well, you could work the next two days. So I came to work. I was like, well, what do I do? And he's like, look, you need to be conscientious. You need to arrive to work five minutes early, never five minutes late. Be focused and always willing to help everybody. So I was really eager. I was 21 years old. And at the end of the third day, the director was leaving the set, and he thanked me. And he said, thank you for your help. What's your name? And I said, my name is Al Pacino. Thank you. And he left. And the producer came up to me. He's like, are you available next week? I was like, available what? Are you working? You know, we want to hire you next week. I was like, oh, yeah, okay, great. So I wound up working as a PA. And I never wound up taking the photography classes, because I got right into the film business. And all of a sudden, I was working a lot. And I bought myself a camera. And I taught myself how to print. There used to be a dock room on 20th Street off the Flatiron District where you could rent the dock rooms. It's called 20-20. And I used to go in there and print my own black and white photography. And slowly, you know, I was working as a PA. And I met a camera assistant one day on the job. His name was Paul Gaffney. And I was like, you know, I'm really interested in getting a camera. How does one go about it? And he said, you're really interested? I said, yeah. He goes, well, I could use a little help today. I was like, great. He goes, can you move those cases? We were shooting in the house. And he told me to move them to the other room. And they moved the camera in the other room. And they set up to do a shoot. And then he's like, you know, can you move those cases over there? And they moved the cases over there. And then later in the day, he's like, move the cases over there. And he's making me move the cases. And I'm saying to myself, oh, this guy's just doing this on purpose. Let me see where this goes. And at the end of the day, he says to me, he says, you know, I see you're really serious. Why don't you, next week I'm prepping a camera. Why don't you come to the camera rental house and I'll start showing you how to work a camera? So I went to, you know, I went to the rental house. And he started teaching me camera. And I started tagging along on jobs with him for free. And I eventually started loading and seconding. So that's how I got into the camera department. And I, you know, always had inspirations at that point of being a cinematographer. And it was late 80s in New York. And the home music of the MTV was starting to really take off. So I started working with a cinematographer by the name of Harris Savides. And Harris was originally a still photographer. And he made the switch over to cinematography. And I was going back and forth between New York and L.A. with him. And Harris would let me shoot second camera for him a lot. And one day we were working with this director named Peter Kerr. And Peter really liked having me around and shooting second camera. And we were doing a lot of work. And one day he called Harris up and said, hey, Harris, I'm doing this music video. And I said, you know, I was thinking of Sal shooting second unit. What do you think? And Harris was really encouraging him and encouraged him to go ahead. And I shot this little stuff. And when Peter saw the film, he said, you know, if I would have known it would have been this good, I would have given you the job. He said, you know, one day when something comes up and the right job for you, I'll hire you to shoot it. So these MTV, a couple of months later, these MTV promos came up. That was April 93. And I shot these MTV promos. And they took off. Who shot these? Sal Tutino, Harris's assistant. And, you know, I had an agent call me at that point and said, look, we want to represent you. And from there I got here. Well, and music videos in that period of time, I mean, they were very bold and experimental. I would think that that was an excellent training ground to take risks. Yes. It was really an experimental training ground. They were art forms. They were really art films. And the directors had much more creative license than they ever had. You know, the band would say, hey, we're interested in working with you. Come up with an idea. And they would write some very interesting, crazy ideas. And then you had to come up with, you know, an interesting approach to them. A live video I shot for Lightning Crashes, which was the band's first video. Right. You know, the director, Jake Scott, had done a video with Katie Lang that year. I was involved in the project. And he shot some double exposures. And he showed me the video. And he said, you know, I'd really like to do something like this. So we came up with this approach about shooting all in-camera double exposures. There's no visual effects, no post-production at all in that video. Everything was done in camera. And a double exposure in camera is you shoot the scene, the film. Then in the dark, you roll the film back to the beginning and shoot it over again. So it's double exposing the image. And, you know, there's a little bit of math and science involved in that and a lot of creativity and sometimes some wonderful mistakes come out of it. Yeah. It was exciting. It was exciting to sort of be involved with that. And today, with the new digital technology, you can do a double exposure. Yeah. The first thing somebody says when you have that idea is saying, hey, I want to shoot film and I want to do some double exposures. You're like, well, we're shooting digital. You know what? We'll do that in post. And it's not quite the same. Yeah. You're right. It takes the creativity away from the cinematographer, away from the director. And other people get involved at that point. And somebody's like, well, I want it more transparent. No, I want it less transparent. Oh, this needs to be like this. Oh, this needs to be like that. So those wonderful little moments and nuances that just happen organically through film just isn't there. Well, and you have all of these controls at your fingertips. I mean, you can apply these effects in seconds, but that doesn't necessarily facilitate the most creative solutions sometimes. Is that what you're saying? It doesn't always create the most creative solutions. But have you embraced digital? I mean, have you been shooting digital as of late at all? I haven't done a feature film digitally. However, I would say 90% of the commercial work I do now is digital. Which, you know, I like it. I've embraced it. There's just some aspects of it that are not like film. Right. You can't achieve certain things you could in camera like you could with film. Like varying the speed, for example. You know, like an old hand-crank camera where, you know what hand-crank cameras are. Sure, yeah. Okay, so, well, if the audience doesn't know, before there were electrical motors on cameras, there were hand-cranks. And the cameraman had to turn this crank to run the film through the camera and expose the film. So by doing that, you never got an exact 24 frames a second. And so that's why old silent films really look like they're flickering a lot. So if you wanted to achieve that today digitally, you can. But if you shot on film, you could do that with an old hand-crank camera, or you could do it even with a modern film camera and get a vary motor and just kind of vary it like you would do a dimmer in your light switch in your home where you go up and down with it. There's little things like that. And that, I've got to say, I miss that. I miss having that at your fingertips. You have to rely on somebody later to finish that for you. Exactly. It's interesting to me that you definitely gained the technical knowledge you needed to kind of excel at your craft at that stage of your career. But when did you feel like you were gaining the storytelling chops? Because that's the other major component of what you do. I mean, you're a visual storyteller. Well, you know, I have always looked for the storytelling. And I did start out with commercials and music videos. And the videos are much more little storytelling than commercials were. Well, some commercials you're trying to tell a quick little story in 30 seconds, but not so in an in-depth way. So my first feature film, you know, I always wanted to do features. And I got lucky enough to work with Oliver Stone on my first film, which was Any Given Day. You had a heck of a first feature. I mean, that's a massive project. You have no idea. It wasn't just the fact that it was a massive project. It was working with Oliver Stone. Yeah. I lost 22 pounds on that movie. And it was intense. Oliver said to me the first day of principal photography, welcome to Vietnam. I was like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, and doing a feature film is like going to war. And also in that situation, Vietnam was not coming back in a body bag. And I think Hollywood was looking at me coming home, coming home early from the film. And I used to say that that didn't happen. And, you know, I look back on that experience, and there's a lot that I learned from that. And there's a lot I wish I could go back and change. I do like the way the film turned out. It did shy me away from doing feature films for a little while, because I thought that sort of madness that took place, I didn't want to be part of. So it took a little while for me to find another script that I liked and a director that I'd like to work with to get back into feature. So I did Changing Lanes after Any Given Sunday, which is the first original script, which is the same script that the movie was finished with. The opening was really ethereal and interesting, and it really drew me in. And I loved Roger Michell. I had a great experience with him. And from that moment on, I was really, really more hooked on feature films than ever before. Well, I just want to go back just briefly to Any Given Sunday, because I spoke with Robert Richardson for this series too, who did amazing things with Stone, and he has his own war stories with Oliver Stone. But what I wanted to ask about was, there's one actor that I idolize above all others, and that's Al Pacino. So can you share any anecdotes or stories about shooting with him? What was great about Al is, Al's a really hard worker. He's really focused. He really believes the character and works at perfecting his character. What was really amazing to me was, one of the first times, you know, the beginning of the film, I'm on set and, you know, facing the set, and Al walks on and he just taps me on my back, like a little slap on the back. He's like, hey, Sally boy, how you doing? In my head I go, God, Al Pacino called me Sally boy. I can't believe this is happening, you know? I don't know what to say, really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives, all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team, or we're going to crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, until we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch at a time. But, you know, Oliver, to be honest, Oliver was very tormenting on that movie. And a little out of his mind. Which caused this sort of, you know, I always say Oliver's a method actor. He becomes what the film is. And, you know, that was, you know, football and that environment and those characters were a crazy environment. And that was Oliver. So we were filming one night. It was about two o'clock in the morning. Oliver wouldn't come out of his trailer. We had to do this scene in the rain where the camera sort of moves up into Al's face. And Al's assistant comes out on set and is like, Sal, what's going on? And I'm like, look, I don't know. I really don't know. Al, you know, let me see what I can do. Let me keep calling. So I get to the AD and I'm like, look, Al's getting impatient. We got to, you know, it's two o'clock in the morning. We've got to get going here. So he kept calling Oliver, kept calling Oliver. Oliver finally comes out of his trailer. It's after three o'clock. And, you know, Al comes over to me and he's like, Sally, I'm no good after midnight. And, you know, in this scene, you know, the camera just pushes in on Al in the rain. It's all dripping down on his face. And he's disgusted. Because what had happened in the story, Jamie's teammates have given up on him. Right. That game they've shot in the rain. And he's just getting his ass whooped. And Al is disgusted by the whole thing. And upset. And I think part of Al's performance came from the fact that Oliver tormented him by not letting him in his trailer and wearing him down. And in my mind, I'm like, you don't need to worry about Al. You just need to ask him. He'll give it to you. Yeah. Of all people. But that was Oliver's method. Well, you can feel that kind of aggression in the film. It benefits from it. I mean, I have to say. There was a lot of crazy aggression on that movie that didn't happen on the camera. Yeah. Well, that's a testosterone-filled set. Tell me about it. And look, I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I grew up having to fight my way. And, you know, thank God because it prepared me for that world. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because when I've spoken to a lot of DPs in service of this series, I mean, they all kind of cherish the idea of a collaboration, like an ongoing career-long collaboration with a director. And you found it with Ron Howard. And how do you guys connect? What is it about the two of you that make a good team? It's a really honest relationship. And it's a collaborative environment. Ron is somebody who is a great guy. He's a great guy to work with. He's really smart, extremely focused, very prepared, does his homework, very eager to be at work. We drive into work together. As many times we'll say, you know, we're picking you up at 7 o'clock. And we get there at 5 to 7. They usually pick me up first because it's where we live in proximity to each other. And I'm always early. So we'll get there at 5 to 7, and Ron's outside pacing. And then we'll get in the car in the morning, and we're like, morning, morning, how are you doing? Did you guys sleep? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is what I was thinking today, and he pulls out a shot list. And I'll look at the shot list, and I'm like, Ron, there's 35 shots on here. And we got to shoot two scenes today. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, here's the shot list for the second scene. You know, another 22 shots. And we achieve that in the day. And a lot of that is because Ron's really prepared. And the honesty is I can tell Ron how I feel about something and what I think. He'll be like, Sal, what do you think? How should we do this? How should we do that? And I'll be like, oh, we should do it like this. And he'll be like, okay. Or, no, I don't want to do it like that. And I'm like, okay. You know, we don't take anything to heart. And it's in that way because there is a give and take. And it's always for what Ron thinks is better for the film. And that's why it's such a wonderful relationship. I cherish it. I really do. And what strikes me about him as a filmmaker is how versatile he is. I mean, how different these movies are that you guys have done together, from The Missing and Cinderella Man and Da Vinci, Frost, Nixon, Angels and Demons, Dilemma. I mean, they're completely different stories and environments. So, I mean, that has to be a great thrill for you to be able to bring out that versatility in what you can do as well. Well, it keeps me challenged. You know, it's not the same thing. And it's easy for one to become complacent and rely on what you know. And how, you know, if you're doing the same thing, it's kind of like making the same dish over and over again. You know, I make a certain pasta dish and I make it the same way over and over again. And it tastes really good every time. But there's nothing different to it. So if you're working on the same subject matter, you tend to become complacent and do it the same way. And that's what's great, because Ron's a really good storyteller and he will find, he's interested in finding different subject matters and approaching them differently. He's constantly elevating his game, which is elevating my game. You know, cinematographers usually get fired the first week of principal photography. Studios start seeing what the film is and they don't like what's going on or the movie's going too slow and you're way behind schedule and you're the fall guy. And a lot of times you are the fall to it. So the first week in The Missing, the first film I'm doing with Ron, it is going incredibly well. Unbelievably well. And the film's looking good and we're ahead of schedule and we're gaining a lot of extra shots and it seems like Ron's happy. So we got very sunny outside and we were at the ranch. And what we were doing at the ranch is we were trying to go outside when the weather wasn't, when it was more stormy and feel that sort of coldness of the winter and when it was sunny, we were trying to go inside and light inside. So we were setting up for a scene outside and it got, all of a sudden, the skies broke up, very sunny. We ran into the barn to go shoot the scene. So I'm lighting the scene and it's a little set-up time and Ron says to me, Can I talk to you over here for a minute? And it was about 15 feet away from where I was and that 15 feet felt like an hour when my stomach dropped. I was like, oh my God, I'm getting fired. It's Friday, the end of the first week. He wants to talk to me. I'm in the back of my head. I'm like, oh my, you know, how could this be? It's been such an incredible week and does he expect more from me? And he pulls me over and he says, Sal, I got this script called Cinderella Man and before he can even finish his sentence, I said, I'll do it, I'll do it. He says, no, no, no. Just read it first and see if you like it. And I didn't tell him until after. I was like, look, I was just so grateful that you weren't firing me. Wow, wow. Cinderella Man is actually a movie that I wanted to ask you about because I would think the particular challenges of this would be capturing not only the period but the feeling of being in the ring. I mean, it's a very visceral sense you get from that movie. I mean, what were the challenges for you specific to that film? Well, you know, Ron, that was one of the things in pre-production. Ron's like, how can we make this different than other boxing movies? What do you think? And I was like, what really impresses me about the movie is what changed, what made Braddock, what made Braddock want to do better on getting, turning his life around. So I was more obsessed with his emotion. And the way to get into his emotion is to get into his head. And I thought it would be really good for the viewer to become Braddock in the ring. And Ron's like, well, how are you going to do that? And I was like, well, I'm just going to get in the ring with the camera. He's like, are you nuts? And I was like, no. And, you know, we did some tests. We figured out how to get in the ring with the boxers and the camera. And I operated the camera. It was in the ring. We figured out the choreography. And, you know, move the camera around. And there were certain key moments that we would punch out where the camera would become, would actually get hit. I put a camera inside this tire cam. And we suspended it off of bungees and covered it with padding. And I had it on wheels and I could move it around and have either box or hit it. Or there was times I'd go with a smaller camera and I'd put on some padding and I would get hit by the boxers. So that I knew in that moment, that feeling, that I wanted it shot on a 35mm. I did not want to use a different medium. You know, like in Ali, they took these lipstick cams, two of them, and put them together. And so the video aspect of it, you know, I wanted it to sort of all stay the same. Right. And it was challenging. And Ron was really open to that. And, you know, he was concerned. It's like, look, as long as we don't hurt our actors, let's go for it. The thing is, I can't afford to, I can't afford to pay the heater. I've got to farm out my kids. You know, to keep cutting shifts down at the docks, you just don't get picked every day. I sold everything I got that anybody would buy. I went on public assistance. I signed on at the relief office. They gave me $19. I need another $18.38 so I can pay the bill and get the kids back. You know me well enough to know if I had anywhere else to go, I wouldn't be here. If you could help me through this time, I sure would be grateful. Well, in general, what is your communication with the actors? Because obviously their main conduit is the director. But what is your level of communication with them? Well, you know, Ron creates a very comfortable environment. And, you know, it's about communication and communicating to the actors. And the actors, when they feel comfortable and secure that you're there to help them with their performance, there's a collaborative environment there. And that's the way it was, that's the way it's been on all the films that I've worked with Ron. Russell was, you know, very into the idea of the camera in the ring. And he was like, how are you going to be able to do this? How are you going to be able to keep up with us? And I'm like, I'll keep up with you. You'll see. And when he saw that I could, he was even more encouraged to push it further. So, you know, that we all work together in elevating his performances in the ring. Right. And then you have something like... Oh, go ahead. I'm so sorry. No, go ahead. Well, I was going to turn it over to Frost Nixon because that's a very intimate performance piece. It's a stunning, stunning movie. But when you're working on something like that, I mean, this came from a real life event, obviously. I mean, is referencing the original source materials an important part of that preparation for you? Well, referencing the source material in the sense of just having the knowledge of what the interviews were like. The visual language of the film was more about what the period was than trying to capture that moment so that you didn't feel out of place. And learning who those characters were, who the real people were and what they were going through to help tell that story visually. So that was my preparation in that film. What was very interesting was Frank Langella. I really didn't get to know Frank like I have any other actor on set until after the movie. And Frank insisted on being called Mr. President. And I was like, okay, that's the actor's process. I respect that and I'll call him Mr. President. Well, when Mr. President walked on set, Mr. President took the air out of the room. And it's interesting because it was Nixon walking on set. It wasn't Frank Langella walking on set. And that's just what's so amazing. There were times when we were shooting Frank and the hair on my neck would just stand up and I'd say, oh my god, this is Nixon. I'm in the room with Nixon. And you really appreciate it. And you're like, oh my god, we're really part of something here. What a phenomenal movie. The David Frost team, the actors were really close. Sam and Matthew and Oliver, and they were always joking around and having fun. So we'd be on set waiting for the president to come in and they'd be joking around and people would be laughing and talking with everybody. And Frank would come in and the silence would just... you could hear a pin drop. And he wouldn't come over to say anything, he'd just pace in the corner. And you're like, oh my god, that's Nixon pacing in the corner. The guy's come back from the dead. And it shows. And damn, I wish Frank would have won that Academy at this point in his life. It would have been nice for him to have that. Oh, but you feel that in that movie, though. You feel his immersion. I mean, he'd lived with that part for so long between stage and film. He's great in that. He became the president. And I really didn't get to know Frank until after that movie. The last film you did with Mr. Howard is The Dilemma. I hear from all kinds of people in the film business, whether it be the director, writer, composer, what have you, that comedy takes a very specific skill. Did you find that to be the case? You know, Ron was great about the approach in that because he was very specific about, look, let's not make this look like a typical comedy. Let's make it just flat lit. So he gave me some licensing, some license to be creative with the approach to it. And I think we did. It was definitely a hard subject matter to work in because sometimes you don't know what's funny or how something gets put together. So, you know, you're constantly wondering how it's going to turn out. And you hear about people like, directors like Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler, how they do a lot of takes. And, you know, they'll do two, three takes. And then the next two, three takes they do, they change dialogue. And they change the dialogue. And they're constantly changing it. And it's in that comedy way. And they're looking and pushing and stretching it. So that was very new to me because I hadn't experienced any of that before. Because Vince Vaughn is an actor that likes, I've heard, that likes to kind of explore and experiment and go off to see what he can come up with. Did you try to find an element of improvisation yourself on that film? Or was it a challenge to... No. I would sometimes improv if I saw blocking and say, okay, let me change this. Let me change my idea here. Let me change my approach here. Because in rehearsals, it's not what I thought it was going to be. Or they changed it. Right. So, you know, it wasn't as spontaneous as you could be because you needed to give the room to the actor. Right, right. And, you know, there's a couple of scenes, and, you know, it's unfortunate because there were a few scenes in the film that were longer and they were really funny. But because of editorial purposes, you had to cut them down. But there's this whole dialogue, and I still, and me and my crew sort of joke about it sometimes. No peep tom, no peep tom. When he's outside the massage parlor looking in at his friend. Yes. And, you know, the woman comes up and says, did you peep tom? He's like, no peep tom, no peep tom. And it became his joke. And then he walks in, which, you know, was not in the film, but he goes into the massage parlor. And it gets really funny in there because she's like, no peep tom. He's like, no, no, no peep tom. And, you know, it's just sometimes like in the middle of the day when we're in the middle of, I wear headsets to communicate with my crew. And in the middle of a day where things are getting a little hard and tough and we're all working really hard, all of a sudden I'll just burst out and say, no peep tom. You've got to be there. There are experiences. Yeah, yeah. So your new film, I believe it comes out this year, Welcome to People. Very excited about it. What can you tell me about that one? Well, it's a personal story to the director, first time director Alex Kurtzman, that he fictionalized. And Alex had, you know, because he had worked on this project for a really long time. He had very strong ideas and approaches to it. When I read the script, I immediately fell in love with it. It's a modern day Italian neorealistic film in a sense. You know, it's about humanity. It's about people. It's about tragedy. You know, it's about love and people changing. And so when I read the script, I was really excited. And Alex really kind of had another cameraman in mind. And I went to meet him. In the interview, I was so animated. I had all these ideas and all these approaches because I really connected with the characters in the film, especially the main character Chris Pine, and what he was struggling with in certain moments. And I thought of how we could approach it. So I kept expressing that and, you know, being Italian, talking with my hands, and, you know, being all animated. It went on for a little while, the interview, and then it ended and I left and I got in the car and I was like, oh my God, he probably thinks I'm on drugs. So, so hyper and excited. And almost by the time I got home, my agent called and said, look, they really want you to do the movie. I was so happy. I was really excited. Because you had a... Sorry? You had a passion for it. I mean, that's... I had a very deep passion for it. And I immediately connected with Alex and made a really good friend out of the experience. It was tough because it was a low-budget film for me. It was $18 million, it needed to be shot in 42 days, and Alex had very big cinematic ideas for the movie. So it was a challenge on how are we going to achieve this? And I think we did. I don't want to give too much of the movie away. I'll just tell you the actors were fantastic. You were on set and you kind of forgot sometimes you're on set. It's that kind of moment. It's a Frank Langella moment. There were two times in the film where Michelle Pfeiffer is fighting with her son, Chris Pine. And I, you know, as I said earlier, I operate a camera and my camera was on Michelle. And I could just see and feel her emotion. And then I started to cry. And it's just really wonderful. And when you see this movie, you'll understand why. I can't wait to see it. And Michelle Pfeiffer is... I'm so sorry, I mean Michelle Pfeiffer is just a stunning actress in every sense. She's, you know, I can't imagine. She's a really stunning actress. And an incredible person, too. Incredible to work with. Very stunning. Very flexible. Spectacular. One more question. Is the film out in the fall? In the fall? It comes out fall of this year? Well, I don't know when it's coming out. I'm just saying I hope that it comes out the fall of this year. Because I really think that the actors could get nominated. Yeah. And Alex, for the first time directing, it was like working with a seasoned director. It was really like a seasoned director. He did it. He was like Ron in a sense. He did his homework. He was prepared. He was focused. He came to work enthusiastic every day. He never sacrificed. He never gave up. He, you know, he never was complacent with anything. You know, he just kept pushing it, pushing it. And, you know, I love him for it. I'm looking forward to it. Before I let you go, just one more question. I like to ask this one. Are there particular films that you refer back to for inspiration from a cinematography point of view? You know, there are a few and each case things are different. You know, there's one film that sticks out for me a lot called Rat Catcher directed by Lynn Ransing. Yeah, yeah. I really love the way that film was approached. A lot of Scorsese's films. The fact that, you know, he pushed cinematography cinematically in a different direction. Ah, you know, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. And in the sense that, you know, they took this idea, you get a script that says, okay, this guy's got a stroke and he's in a bed and he writes a book. And I'm like, oh shit, how am I going to make that interesting? And it reminds me that when you think, when you don't feel challenged, you're not challenging yourself. And it makes me look at everything differently. And that's Janusz really, and Julian, really challenged themselves on that film and it shows. So, you know, I refer to that film in that sense. Right. Not every film that I look at is a direct visual idea, but more of an emotional feeling that invokes. Or I'll draw from music. Big Tom Waits, Nick Cave fan. And, you know, Tom changed my life. You feel like you're a kid and being told the same old, your parents reading you the same book over every night. And every night they read that book to you and in your mind that book, the story looks different. And listening to Tom, Nick, the stories keep changing visually in my mind. So I draw a lot from music. I draw a lot from photography or a book that I might be reading. So, cinematography to me isn't just about technique, but it's about emotion. And, yeah, there's some science involved, some math involved in it. You know, you could approach it in a very technical way, but it's not technical. It's really an emotion. And it's like cooking. Right. It's about the ingredients that you put into it, how well the dish tastes. And you don't cook, at least I don't cook, I love cooking, in a technical way. I cook emotionally. Yeah. And I'll be like, oh, you know, this could use a little of this and this could use a little of that. Ooh, yeah. And then, you know, I'll make a dish and the next time my wife will be like, you know, you make it like that again and I'm feeling different that day and I can never make it taste like I did that the first time because I was feeling different. Yeah. That's the way I approach photography.