Salvatore Totino ASC, AIC (Be here. Be Present.) - The Sean Trace Show #92

Welcome back to the show. I got a really awesome guest with me today. Now, would you like to introduce yourself and tell people who you are and what you do? Hi, I'm Salvatore Totino, the director of photography and emotion picture industry. Brother, we've done enough. It's awesome. I haven't seen you. I got, I got the chance to work with you guys a long time ago. It was, it was like 12, 12, 15 years ago, a long time ago. Again, 2008, 2008 and angels and demons. Yeah. Angels. Yeah. This 12 years, 12, 13. Yeah. And it was really awesome to see you guys work. And, and, um, I always wanted a chance to sit down. I kind of pick your brain about how did, how did you find this career? Oh God. I kind of fell into it. I, you know, I was on a whole different trajectory. Um, I went to college for engineering. I quit. I became an electrical contractor. It was going to then become a New York city policeman. I took the test, all this sort of stuff. And, uh, I had a second cousin who worked in the film business in the one big Italian family event. He was there and we started talking. He's like, well, you know, he was telling me what he did. And I was interested. I was always very interested in photography. Yeah. So my parents immigrated to America and it's not like you either went to school or you wanted to trade. There was no, this, uh, making a living as an artist kind of thing. You know, they didn't understand it. And, and nor was it, you know, um, that culture was developed in my, my household. So, uh, you know, I always had this interest in photography and I went to some of that work and I really wanted to, you know, know about it more. And he's like, you know, you need to quit your job and become a PA. And then, so I did that and I got a job as a PA and I started working as a PA and I got my way into the camera department and met a great camera assistant who worked, uh, his name was Paul Gaffney and he worked with Jack Donnelly on commercials. And, uh, he took me under his wing and started training me. It's awesome. Got my hands, hands on, on camera and, uh, just started learning. I'm a, uh, you know, what do they call it? Um, that this deck, uh, learn, uh, you know, I learned with my hands really well. And I'm, I'm dyslexic. So like reading manuals and stuff like that, you kind of get the gist, but when you get your hands on it, somebody shows you it's like an immediate click. Um, so, you know, I, I started learning camera and then I was working as a camera assistant. I started moving my way up and I met a cinematographer by the name of Harris Savides, who just started breaking out from the still world into the music video world. And I started working with them. And, and from there it led to me meeting a commercial music video director by the name of Peter Kerr. And Peter, um, sort of liked my eye when I was making suggestions. And one day, you know, started to let me shoot B camera. And then one day, like, and let me shoot, let me shoot a small MTV promo home. And then the rest is history. It's awesome, man. Now, now you, you, it's so great about this country. It's like, right. You can do anything, right. You know, you know, you, you need somebody to show you a door sometimes, but it's up to you to open that door and step in. Um, and you know, I, I, I think we're very fortunate, you know, very fortunate to live here. I've been very lucky in that sense and taking any, the opportunities and working hard to get your work ethic and turn in, you know, um, you know, making your passion, your life. I was having this conversation with someone recently because two people that were from, from outside the U S one was from, from Europe and one was from here in Asia, and they were like, they were commenting about that. Like there is this ability in the States still to, to, to there's, you can make waves if you have, if you understand that relationships are important and you understand the value of, of just hustling, you know, because my friend was saying in, in, um, you know, in, in where he was at in Europe, it was all relationships, but it was all these old relationships. So it was really hard to kind of break in. And, and so he was saying like, it was a real challenge at times to kind of make inroads. But you know, that's the beauty of like, are you right? Like there is this ability. I love reading, I love going back and reading some of the, you know, all the old stories about like, you know, Rockefeller time and it was like the wild west of, of business, but like, Oh, they were ruthless, but you know, it's just like a little borderline mafia, you know, killing people. And it's just like, it was totally different, but yeah, there was still this, like, this idea has always been there of being like self-made, you create things where you go with, you couldn't necessarily do that in other places, you know, so no, no. And, and I think that that's, that's sort of really wonderful. And it's just a matter of, you know, a lot applying yourself. I mean, at work, when I see, you know, crew members that somebody who's like really interested in is taking that extra step, trying to, you know, uh, they got a great work ethic and you approach them and you're like, Hey, what do you want to do with your life? And they're like, Oh yeah, no, I want to be a DP. And I'm like, all right, you know, start asking me questions. Let me help you. You know, you, you see that in people and then you want to sort of reach out. Awesome. And, and help them, uh, you know, get themselves through that door. And I think that there's a lot more, uh, in society today than there was 30 years ago or 40 years ago, especially 50 years ago that, you know, a lot of people are noticing people's abilities and giving them opportunities, not everywhere, not everywhere, but they are, you know, I mean, you know, look at, look at, look at Elon Musk, right? I mean, come on. The guy immigrated to America, you know, dropped out of Stanford and look where he is today. You know, he's, he's because of him, the whole green movement, the EV movement in the United States has just gone, you know, GM and Ford would have not propelled away like, like he has. And now everybody, you know, people, you know, some people vilify him and then other young people are inspired by him and it gets people to think differently and to try different things out and go, Hey, he can do something. I can do something. And that's the thing. And it's like, sometimes people, there was this interesting book that I read. Oh man. What was it called? Um, I'll pop up. I put it a pop up later and I I'll message you later on. I think it was called the hero class or the, the, the leader class or something. It was this book about, about leaders. And one of the things that they talked about was that true leaders are always disruptors. And, and a disruptor can either be extremely good or can lead to absolute chaos to the system. But no matter what, when you get a disruptor who comes in, they, they reset things and the society has to reset kind of around them. You know, granted it's not always good, but quite often the aftermath of it is a positive because people have to reset. And that's one of the things I like about Elon Musk is that the man is the penultimate disruptor. Like he came in and when the system was like before PayPal, think about it. You wanted to send money to something. You wanted to buy something online. You know, it was so difficult. You know, and then suddenly PayPal just changed the game and then same thing, all of the different things that he's come along and granted, you know, I don't know if all of his ideas will succeed. You know, we'll see how the boring company pans out, but you know, SpaceX private, I privatizing space flight and, you know, and Tesla has changed the game for automotive. It's, it's, it's awesome like that, you know? And it's, it's interesting. It's interesting to see that. I think that we're allowed now to become a little bit more free thinkers and to propel ourselves because there isn't a bureaucracy in the way with, with the whole internet and the technology is always, you could always circumvent that. And, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting what's happening in media and news media now, all these independent outlets and, you know, where that's heading and, you know, what, where the truth is going. It's just, it's wonderful. I mean, we're living in a, in an interesting time and I think it's a time of really big change.