Podcast · Arts & Books

The Cinematography Podcast

by The Cinematography Podcast · English · Arts & Books

Art, Business, Craft and Philosophy of the Moving Image

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 11 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026New

Inside the IMAX Camera Department with Scott "Smitty" Smith

Scott "Smitty" Smith, the IMAX camera technician behind Oppenheimer, Sinners and The Odyssey, on large format film, servicing cameras and why film costs less than you'd think. This episode is packed with technical detail for anyone who wants to understand the mechanics of shooting IMAX, from servicing the cameras to what the premium ticket actually buys. Podcast highlights include: -How Smitty’s zigzag career built a one-of-a-kind specialist. From Learjet periscope systems and aerials to IMAX documentaries and features, Smitty developed IMAX camera technician into its own job. He services…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E376 · 2 Oct 2026
DP Doug Emmett on shooting the crime drama Furious
Furious DP Doug Emmett breaks down how the production team aligned on tone, lighting a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows, and creating a red-lit party scene. Podcast highlights include: -How the Furious team rehearsed their look-book pitches over Zoom before presenting to the studio. Every pitch got shorter and sharper, and the department heads began production aligned on the tone of the show. -How Emmett lit a 60th-floor penthouse of floor-to-ceiling windows that became a tricky house of mirrors once darkness fell. Taped-up light mats, low bounces and black rags kept the reflections…
E375 · 25 Sep 2026
Never After Dark: filming a ghost story in Japan using camera magic
Director Dave Boyle and DP Patrick Ouziel on making the ghost story Never After Dark in Japan: a 28-day shoot, a backlit zoetrope mirror, and in-camera magic. Podcast highlights: -How Boyle, fresh off the Netflix hit House of Ninjas, made the film in Japan. Cast and crew were locked in before the script was finished, a development cycle very different from what happens in Hollywood's. -What it's like to shoot in a language you don't speak. Ouziel worked through a translator and alongside lighting director Hidenori Nagata, whose traditional fixtures and custom mirrors changed how he thinks…
E374 · 18 Sep 2026
Wesley Wang on building a studio for the internet generation
Director Wesley Wang on building Wesley Wang Media, an indie studio incubator for online creators, launching a $100K open contest, and staying a filmmaker himself. Podcast highlights include: -How Wesley Wang Media flips the traditional development model. Rather than years of notes and pitch meetings behind closed doors, the company funds small, low-cost proofs of concept and lets online audiences decide what gets scaled toward streaming or theatrical. -The $100,000 open filmmaker contest the company just launched. No agent, lawyer, or prior credits required — just a 60-second pitch video,…
E373 · 18 Sep 2026
Special Episode: Remembering Rodney Charters, ASC, CSC, NZSC
Remembering cinematographer Rodney Charters, ASC, dp of 24, Sleepwalkers, and much more in this classic Cinepod conversation on craft, career, and lighting.
4 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
DP Brett Pawlak’s vision for Spider-Man: Brand New Day
DP Brett Pawlak on grounding Spider-Man: Brand New Day in natural light, practical suit design, and 17 years collaborating with Destin Cretton. Podcast highlights include: -How Pawlak and Cretton’s input about the suit design kept Peter Parker feeling human. The mask allowed Tom Holland's jaw to move, and his real eyes were visible through the mesh so the audience never forgets there’s a human under the mask. -Pawlak's approach to lighting a tentpole movie. Using as much natural light as possible. -Solving the Jean Grey telekinesis sequence with a simple method. Capturing a choreographed…
28 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Building a nearly silent crime drama in Motor City
Cinematographer John Matysiak on shooting Motor City's nearly dialogue-free story, real in-camera stunts, and building its 1970s Detroit look from film tests. Podcast highlights include: -Why Motor City tells its story with almost no dialogue, and how that shaped everything from frame rate to needle-drop music. The crew tested wildly different frame rates to find moments where the image alone could carry the emotion of a scene. -The commitment to shooting practical over digital, including a real car fight and a one-day elevator brawl. The team built real stunts on real streets, saving…
22 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Bringing indie instincts to Voicemails for Isabelle
DP Julia Swain on faking the Golden Gate Bridge, rigging a real tour bus, and bringing indie instincts to Netflix's Voicemails for Isabelle Podcast highlights include: -How Julia shot the film's pivotal Golden Gate Bridge overlook scenes without using a stage. The team scouted the real Marin Headlands, built a 3D map of the exact sightline, then recreated the spot in a Vancouver park at night, using blue screen only where the bridge needed to be. -How Julia pulled off shooting the most difficult scenes of the film: a real tour bus driving through San Francisco instead of faking it on a…
14 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Michael Bauman on building horror for Monster: The Ed Gein Story
DP Michael Bauman, ASC on shooting Monster: The Ed Gein Story, building a visual language with period lenses, and lighting with just reflectors and flashlights. Podcast highlights include: -How Michael built a distinct visual language for each era with lensing shifting from period to period. Color and texture gave the digital image a weathered, film-period feel. -Lighting the Emmy-nominated Episode 6 sequence almost entirely with reflected and practical light. Rather than lighting the set conventionally, the crew bounced light and had actors sweep real flashlights themselves, revealing the…
7 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Shooting mud, fog and firelight in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
DOP Gustav Danielsson, FSF on shooting HBO's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms with naturalistic firelight, practical battlefield fog, and in-camera POV shots Podcast highlights include: -How Gustav and director Owen Harris planned the show's night time, fire-light-driven look. -Beginning their shoot day at dusk to catch the natural blue hour light in the wide shots before moving into closer setups. -Pulling off the massive dueling tournament in Episode 5, using practical fog and mud to set the mood. -The sinister gray mist was chosen as a practical solution to use fewer extras, and added to…
31 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Matt Ball on shooting in remote regions for Tucci in Italy
DP Matt Ball on shooting Tucci in Italy Season 2, the challenges of journeying to remote regions over tourist spots, and capturing emotional moments on camera. Podcast highlights include: -How the show featured lesser-traveled regions like Sardinia, Le Marche, and rural Abruzzo to capture authentic regional culture. -Running a lean, self-contained crew for shoots in remote and hard-to-reach locations. The production has a "no egos allowed" policy where everyone — including Stanley Tucci himself — pitches in to make the day work. -Why what you see on screen is pretty close to what actually…
17 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Eben Bolter, ASC, BSC reimagines a noir classic in Cape Fear
DP Eben Bolter, ASC, BSC breaks down the watery, noir lighting, anamorphic lenses, and practical tricks behind Apple TV's Cape Fear. Podcast highlights include: -How Eben built Cape Fear's look around the theatrical expressionism of the 1991 Scorsese film. He used the same 2.35 aspect ratio as the Scorsese film, rather than a more conventional widescreen frame. -Working with the production design team to capture the southern humidity and watery themes. Eben chose Atlas Mercury anamorphic lenses with an oval bokeh that give it a watercolor quality. The team also used helium and flame bars to…
11 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Lyle Vincent on lighting the darkness of The Beast in Me
Cinematographer Lyle Vincent on shooting the Netflix series The Beast in Me with Panavision lenses and hard lighting that allow deep shadows to fall into black. Vincent's work is a continuation of his collaboration with director Antonio Campos after the HBO Max drama, The Staircase. The eight-episode limited series, shot entirely by Vincent, was approached less like television and more like one very long feature film. Podcast highlights include: -Lyle's long-running collaboration with director/producer Antonio Campos and how it shaped his approach to shooting The Beast in Me as one…
1 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Christian Sprenger on building the horror-comedy Widow’s Bay
Christian Sprenger, ASC on balancing horror and comedy in Widow's Bay with lighting, practical effects, and years of trust built with producer Hiro Murai. Podcast highlights include: -How Christian's 11-year creative partnership with executive producer and director Hiro Murai has built a shared shorthand, allowing him to pitch unconventional ideas with total trust. -Why the team resisted moody, shadow-heavy horror lighting in favor of bright, high-key images inspired by Jaws and The Shining. Contrast and realism do the dramatic work instead of obvious genre inspirations. -The team's…
20 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Peter Konczal, ASC on Black Rabbit’s raw, low-contrast look
Peter Konczal, ASC on Black Rabbit's deliberately low-tech-analog toolkit, customized blue bounce light, and the gradual unraveling of its visual style episode by episode. Podcast highlights include: -The deliberately low-tech-analog toolkit Pete assembled with co-cinematographer Igor Martinović became the show's defining look. It included one of a kind soot filters and scratched-up glass rulers wedged into matte boxes. These complimented detuned lenses and a low-contrast LUT. -How a custom greenish-blue fill light added contrast, separating the actors from the environment. -The inspiration…
17 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Suburban street photography and voyeurism in DTF St. Louis
DP James Whitaker, ASC breaks down the look of HBO's DTF St. Louis: street photographs, a brutalist style police station, and inobtrusively lighting intimacy. Podcast highlights include: -How street photography, not cinema, was the right reference point for shooting ordinary suburbs. -What led to the unusual set design and lighting of one of the key locations, featuring a brutalist interior that feels right out of Eastern Europe. -Engineering a remote-controlled lighting rig for the show's many intimate scenes, so that the mood never had to be broken. Find James Whitaker:…
13 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Smoke, spotlights, Silicon Valley secrets in The Audacity
The Audacity DP Richard Rutkowski, ASC made Vancouver look like Palo Alto, used lens filters instead of special effects to create wildfires, and dramatized the themes of the show with spotlights and framing. Podcast highlights include: -How Richard and his crew made Vancouver look convincingly like Silicon Valley and why establishing a sense of place was a creative priority from day one. -Why glass filtration is still one of the most powerful tools in a DP's kit. -Richard breaks down exactly how he built the show's haunting wildfire look using physical filters in camera, with minimal…
5 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Bonus Episode: Peter Deming, ASC
Peter Deming, ASC on shooting Evil Dead 2 with director Sam Raimi and working with director David Lynch on Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Twin Peaks. Find Peter Deming: Instagram @peter_deming Spider Noir is now streaming on MGM Plus and Amazon Prime. The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com YouTube: @TheCinematographyPodcast Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Blue Sky: @thecinepod.bsky.social
5 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Shooting in the dark: the making of Spider Noir
Cinematographers Darren Tiernan, ISC and Peter Deming, ASC are the DPs of Spider Noir, the new MGM Plus and Amazon Prime series starring Nicolas Cage as the hard-boiled 1930s New York detective version of Spider-Man. The character is based on Marvel Comics featuring Spiderman Noir, and first introduced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Tiernan and Deming created a series that looks like a classic film noir using vintage lights, custom LUTs and a “noir vocabulary.” We dive into: -How the production created a dual release simultaneously in both black and white and color. -Lead DP Darran…
29 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
James Laxton, ASC Frames Class and Generation Gaps in Beef 2
James Laxton, ASC is the Academy Award nominated cinematographer of Moonlight. His latest project is Season 2 of Beef, the acclaimed Netflix series created by Lee Sung Jin. This season explores themes of love, class, and generational cycles. Key Podcast Highlights: -How James and Lee built a color palette of spring, summer, autumn, and winter that stays continuous through lighting, costume, and production design to give each couple their own visual world. -Why shooting on the large-format ARRI 265 was a thematic decision, presenting characters as larger than life symbols of forces far bigger…
23 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Evoking dread in Something Very Bad is Going to Happen
Krzysztof Trojnar is the cinematographer of the Netflix series, Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. It’s a genuinely unsettling horror show about a woman whose anxiety about an upcoming family wedding spirals into something far darker, with Krzysztof's camera work enhancing the feeling of dread. Key Podcast Highlights: -How the visual language of the show deliberately evolves across episodes, moving from Steadicam to gimbal to handheld to body rig, mirroring the protagonist's psychological deterioration in real time. -Committing to a single lens for nearly the entire show. Krzysztof shot…
15 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Lawrence Sher ASC: filming Apex in the Australian wilderness
Lawrence Sher, ASC, is the cinematographer of Apex, the action thriller currently sitting at number one on Netflix. Apex stars Charlize Theron as a woman hunted through the Australian wilderness by a relentless pursuer, and it's one of the most visceral and visually grounded survival thrillers in recent memory. The entire film was shot on location in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Key Podcast Highlights: -How the extreme remoteness of the locations forced a documentary-inspired toolkit, including the Sony Venice bodies packed into backpacks, lightweight lenses, very few lights and a…
9 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Tari Segal, ASC: visual magic in Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Margo's Got Money Troubles DP Tari Segal, ASC approached the show with spontaneity, intimacy, and a creative way to bring static backdrops to life. Margo's Got Money Troubles follows a young woman navigating an unexpected pregnancy, a complicated family, and some very creative ways to pay the bills. It’s one of the most visually inventive comedies currently streaming. Tari shot four of the show's episodes. Key Podcast Highlights: -How Tari and the team built a shooting style rooted in spontaneity that allowed the actors freedom of movement on set. -Using actual licensed music piped into the…
2 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
DP Greta Zozula on the look of The Testaments
DP Greta Zozula remakes the world of Gilead in The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. She chose a very specific color palette and brighter look to show the optimism for the young women at the school for future wives. Flashbacks to the world of Toronto are sharper, grittier and more realistic. Key Podcast Highlights: -How Greta kept the same camera and lenses consistent from The Handmaid’s Tale into The Testaments, while brightening and widening the look for the optimistic young women of Gilead. -Establishing the aesthetic of The Testaments with a color palette of plums, pinks and…
24 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
The scrappy, indie production of Hunting Matthew Nichols
Hunting Matthew Nichols is an indie horror film that’s shot as a mockumentary/found-footage movie about a documentary filmmaker investigating her brother's disappearance 20 years earlier on Vancouver Island. Writer/producer Sean Harris Oliver and DP Justin Sebastian shot the horror film in 12 days, then independently released it into theaters. Key Podcast Highlights: -How cinematographer Justin Sebastian used Sony FX9 cameras on autofocus, shot archival footage scenes on period-correct cameras, and then physically digitized the tapes for documentary authenticity. -Keeping the camera crew…
17 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Two horror films, one DP: They Will Kill You, Faces of Death
The Cinematography Podcast Episode 353: Isaac Bauman Cinematographer Isaac Bauman captured the visual identities of two different horror movies in They Will Kill You and Faces of Death. Both films are currently in theaters. Bauman discusses the intricate technical gymnastics required to give each film a distinct, cinematic feel. Key Podcast Highlights: -Carefully developing the look of They Will Kill You and Faces of Death with each film’s director. -Solving big lighting challenges for They Will Kill You's climax, using a massive 18K light that had to be repeatedly moved. -Working with…
11 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Ted Hope, Hope For Film: the rebirth of independent cinema
The Cinematography Podcast Episode 352: Ted Hope Producer Ted Hope has worked in the film business for over 40 years, producing dozens of features with several Academy Awards nominations and wins. After leaving Amazon Studios in 2020, Hope went back to his roots as an independent producer and began writing his Substack blog, Hope For Film. He argues that the independent film ecosystem as we know it has reached its final days. However, far from being a tragedy, Ted definitely has hope for film. He sees what's happening in the industry today as a necessary seismic shift. Hope has a vision for…
3 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Two DPs, one vision: creating the look of Pluribus
The Cinematography Podcast Episode 351: Marshall Adams, ASC and Paul Donachie Pluribus DPs Marshall Adams and Paul Donachie share a visual shorthand, love of wide shots, and creative freedom to craft inventive techniques using LED panels. Key Podcast Highlights: -Marshall and Paul’s collaboration as DPs, and how their shared aesthetic vision strengthens the show. -Getting absolute top-down permission from producer/director Vince Gilligan to take creative risks. -The importance of prep, rehearsal and flexibility in planning intriguing shots. -Focusing on finding visual effects in camera…
20 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Lawrence Sher, ASC reimagines Frankenstein for The Bride!
The Cinematography Podcast Episode 350: Lawrence Sher, ASC DP Lawrence Sher felt creatively challenged on The Bride! The "everything burger" movie combines many film techniques and influences, 1930's and contemporary lighting, contemporary actors dropped into archival movie footage, and practical makeup effects. Key Podcast Highlights: -Creating a stylized movie with director Maggie Gyllenhaal using multiple techniques and film influences -Honoring 1930’s filmmaking with longer lenses, and using real archival footage for the “movie within a movie” sequences. -The challenge of lighting and…
13 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
2026 Academy Awards nominations with Jenelle Riley
The Cinematography Podcast 2026 Oscar Special Jenelle Riley, three-time Emmy-winning entertainment journalist and host, chats with Ben and Illya for our SEVENTH annual Oscar nominations special. With a focus on cinematography, they discuss what they liked, what will win, what should win, and their favorite movies of the year that may not have been recognized. They discuss this year’s nominations, including the likeliest Best Picture and Best Director contenders, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. F1 is also mentioned as an outlier for the category,…

About The Cinematography Podcast

Art, Business, Craft and Philosophy of the Moving Image

The Cinematography Podcast is a English arts & books podcast from The Cinematography Podcast. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: The Cinematography Podcast
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 11 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id812436884
Rights: 2026

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